3D printers nowadays are pretty impressive. They can print off keys, bathing suits, jewelry, even glass bowls using sand.  Where have a brilliant team of engineers from Oregon State University decided to take 3D printing? The researches claim to have managed to print solar cells using inkjet printing.  They also say that their process reduces raw material waste by 90 per cent, which significantly lowers the cost of producing solar cells with present day technolgoy. Some of the materials used for more advanced solar cells, such as indium, are very expensive and can’t afford to be wasted. The researchers focused on a compound named chalcopyrite, or “CIGS” for the copper, indium, gallium and selenium elements of which it’s composed. It is perfectly suited for thin-film solar cells, and using it results in little waste. A layer of chalcopyrite one or two microns thick has the ability to capture the energy the photon energy of the sun about as efficiently as a 50-micron-thick layer made with silicon.

Using inkjet technology, the team was able to print out CIGS-based solar cells that could convert light into power with an efficiency of five per cent. While still not yet enough to power a modern solar panel, the researchers are working on improving the efficiency. It’d be pretty awesome if a row of inkjet printers could churn out affordable solar cells. While we won’t see the printers at Staples anytime soon, the scientists are working on achieving an efficiency of 12 per cent, which would compete with modern solar cells.  Why not break that standard too?

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Far be it for me to call myself an expert in the field of manufacturing, but you have to admit that Samsung is doing some rather interesting things these days. We’ve already seen the flexible AMOLED, but how about a display that comes off an inkjet printer? How about one that measures 19-inches?

As odd as it may sound, that’s precisely what Samsung has been able to achieve. Apparently, the Korean firm was showing off a 19-inch AMOLED TV prototype “made using a printing method.” More specifically, the company says it’s using an “inkjet method” for its production.

I imagine this is still quite different from you printing off some family photos, but it does demonstrate some revolutionary manufacturing techniques. Seiko Epson had a 14-inch OLED panel last year, but the Samsung unit today beats it out in almost every respect.

That said, it’s still not up to snuff with regular LCDs just yet. The active matrix OLED only has a resolution of 960 x 540, which is about a quarter of full 1920×1080 HD. It also only has 16.77 million colors with an 8-bit color scale, 58ppi resolution, and 200cd/m2 luminance. On the bright side (no pun intended), it’s only 4mm thick.

I dig the super high contrast that AMOLED is able to provide. If Samsung can up the ante with the resolution (and bring the price down on a per unit basis), this tech could expand well beyond its smartphone line and they’ll be practically printing money. [TechOn]

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In this latter implementation, you want to maintain a certain air of professionalism and that’s why burning your material onto a generic disc may not be the best of ideas. The point is that the distributed disc has your company branding and not that of TDK, Fujifilm, or Memorex. That’s why having personalized labels can be so important, not to mention the personalization that the average consumer can enjoy as well. Sharing family photos and movies this way can be great.

One possible solution that you may want to consider is the Verbatim AquaAce family of discs. More specifically, we’ll be taking a closer look at the Verbatim AquaAce Glossy White Inkjet-printable DVD-Rs. These writable discs can be used with compatible inkjet printers for disc printing.

The Deal with AquaAce Technology

This family of discs makes use of Verbatim’s patented AquaAce glossy white disc coating. The glossy white surface has an appearance not unlike the glossy white photo paper that you may find in a variety of different stores for printing your favorite pictures.

The idea here is twofold. First, it allows for a very professional glossy appearance that can be printed on directly using compatible inkjet disc printers from companies like Primera, Microboards, Epson, Microtech, HP, and so on. There is no Verbatim branding on the discs themselves, so you really can make them your own.

It’s also notable that this photo-quality printing surface is resistant to smudges and bleed due to water and humidity. I normally associate water-resistance with matte finishes, but I found that the glossy surface of these Verbatim AquaAce discs was smudge resistant right away. No more messy fingers.

And the Burning Speed and Quality?

I was provided with a sample of standard DVD-R discs with just 4.7GB of storage. These are not dual-layer discs. They are also rated at just 8x speed and they are single-write discs (not -RW). With the 8x speed, you can fill the disc to capacity in less than 10 minutes.

In terms of reliability, the first disc that I used on my Dell laptop failed to finish. It’s hard to determine whether this is the fault of the software, the DVD burner, or the disc itself. The burning process looked like it finished, filling it with 4GB of photos as a data disc, but the disc showed up as empty when I tried to read it later on.

Repeating the process with a second disc resulted in absolutely no errors and no problems. As mentioned, the initial problem may be due to my computer or it could have been a faulty disc. I can’t say for sure.

Conclusion

Printable DVD-R media isn’t exactly the most exciting thing in the world, but if you have the right printer, these discs are much more convenient that the printing label solutions that you may find elsewhere.

The glossy white surface really is as good as the glossy print paper that photographers use and the high-sheen surface really does give a sense of professionalism. The smudge-resistant surface is quite nice. A 50-disc spindle sells for about $35.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

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