Dr. Amundson	Dr. Bao

Dr. Dodabalapur	Dr. Drzaic	Dr. Rogers

Zhenan Bao and John Rogers of Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Ananth Dodabalapur formerly from Bell Labs and now at the University of Texas, Austin, Karl Amundson of E-Ink Corporation and Paul Drzaic now at Alien Corporation, are the recipients of this year's ACS Award for Team Innovation sponsored by The Corporation Associates. This interdisciplinary team of research chemists, chemical and process engineers and device physicists were the leaders of a larger group responsible for the fabrication of the world's first, flexible, electronic paper prototype. They successfully took inventions relating to the design of electronic ink and organic semiconductor materials from research concept through device demonstration and prototype electronic paper implementation in the remarkably short time of one year. The innovation of a 25 square inch, 256 pixel display driven by an active matrix of transistors built on a flexible plastic substrate using low-cost fabrication techniques was announced to the public on November 20, 2000.

The development of a light-weight, flexible, paper-like medium has been the "holy grail" of many groups of scientists and engineers in this increasingly digital world. While our lives have been revolutionized by the ready availability of computer technology, we are still largely bound to paper, a technology that is over 2000 years old. The specifications that any electronic alternative must meet are impressive: it must be cheap, flexible, light-weight, portable, offer good contrast and reflectivity, be capable of being read from wide-viewing angles, and use little or no power. The electronic paper technology developed here will enable almost limitless opportunities in products ranging from collapsible displays for hand-held devices and laptop computers, to signs and posters, and reprogrammable, paper-back like books made of thin, flexible sheets of an electronic medium.

The key challenge related to development of the electronic paper prototype was to innovate the necessary materials chemistries, processes and fabrication methodologies. Coupling of the bistable, electrophoretic display medium developed and commercialized by E-Ink of Cambridge, Massachusetts with the Bell Labs plastic transistor device technology provided a viable solution. The use of low-cost printing methods to fabricate the "all-plastic," reflective, "paper-like" display was an additional imperative.

Working as a team this group defined the device architecture, and identified materials and fabrication solutions that represent the best compromise of properties for desired device performance. A year later a fully working, defect-free prototype was unveiled and undoubtedly, we will soon see the development of new products enabled by "electronic paper." The members of the joint Lucent/E-Ink Team receiving the award follow.

Karl Amundson is group leader for Ink and Device Physics at E-Ink Corporation. He received his B.S. in Physics and Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989. He then joined Bell Laboratories where he developed theory and demonstrated by experiment new electrical, mechanical and optical properties of block copolymers and related electro-optics of polymer dispersed liquid crystals to structure and liquid crystal surface anchoring. Karl joined E-Ink in the beginning of 1999. His group is responsible for developing electrical and physical models of microencapsulated electrophoretic materials as well as developing design rules for integration of such materials into various devices.

Zhenan Bao is a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1995 and then joined Bell Labs. She has authored more than 50 publications, given more than 30 invited talks and seminars and holds over 5 US patents. She has served as a symposium organizer for American Chemical Society, Materials Research Society and European Materials Research Conferences. She also serves as a Member-at-Large for the Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering Division of the ACS and is on the advisory board for the Journal of Advanced Functional Materials.

Ananth Dodabalapur is currently Professor of Electrical Engineering and Chemistry at the University of Texas, Austin. He received his B.S. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (Chennai) in 1985, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1987 and 1990, respectively. He joined Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies in 1990 and since 1992 has investigated various aspects of the physics and technology of organic semiconductor devices. He has chaired many international conferences/symposia on organic semiconductors and photonics and serves on the editorial board of two journals.

Paul Drzaic is currently Vice-President of Display Technology for Alien Corporation and holds chemistry degrees from the University of Notre Dame (B.S.) and Stanford University (Ph.D.). While his thesis work involved the spectroscopy of gas phase anions, he decided to move into materials-oriented chemistry after his degree. Joining Raychem Corporation, he developed a reputation in the liquid crystal scientific and the international display engineering communities for his work on microencapsulated liquid crystals. His 1985 book, "Liquid Crystal Dispersions," is still the sole monograph on liquid crystal/polymer composites. In 1998 he joined E-Ink Corporation as Director of Technology where he was involved in technology development related to materials and electronic backplanes.

John A. Rogers is Director of the Nanotechnology Research Department at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies. He received B.A. and B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Physics from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1989, followed by an S.M. degree in 1992 and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1995 from MIT. From 1995 to 1997, he was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University. At that time he worked with his own company and in the laboratory of George M. Whitesides, where he developed nanofabrication techniques based on printing, molding and low cost forms of near field photolithography. In 1997, he joined Bell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff and was promoted to Director in the Summer of 2000. His current interests include plastic electronics, high frequency acoustics and active optical fiber devices.

, Number of access since November 07, 2000