Plastic Fantastic!

Within the CPE we’re all pretty comfortable with the fact that some plastics can conduct electricity and that we can print electronic circuits… but try telling that to a 15,000 strong crowd of inquisitive children, teenagers and their parents. The annual Imperial Festival is an amazing fusion of science and life, introducing and reintroducing people from all backgrounds to the exciting research we’re doing in SW7. What’s extra amazing about #impfest is that it coincides with the alumni weekend, which means you get a lot of very inquisitive audiences who left Imperial before plastic electronics really began.

Dr. Xuhua Wang (with the help of Megumi) carefully prepared some polymer paintings of London and there was a collective ‘wow’ every time they were put under the UV light. We had so many interested customers, from a Chinese visitor who was doing an online chemistry GCSE and wanted full orbital diagrams to a former Imperial student who had tried to make flexible inorganic semiconductor devices when he was here. There were school teachers who wanted us wrap their science labs in flexible solar cells and dads who wanted to know when OLED TVs would become affordable that the PhD students manning the stand didn’t get a moment’s rest (other than the 45 minute dance interpretation of Maxwell’s Equations).  

Our large area OLED light panels and organic polymers lit up the faces of an excited generation of future scientists. We promised there will still be questions to be answered about organic semiconductors when they eventually get to Imperial College.

Many thanks to Jess Wade, Jim Bailey, Iain Hamilton, Nathan Chander, Dr. Minwon Suh, Ed Lofts, Nathan Cheetham, Dr. Megumi Ito and of course, the brilliant Dr. Xuhua Wang.