Lab profile: Yanlin Song, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences

New green printing technologies could not only improve the environmental footprint of conventional printing technologies for electronic devices, but also enable a new generation of long-lasting braille books.

As director of the Key Laboratory of Green Printing, Yanlin Song has harnessed his interests in nanomaterials to drive innovation and development of green-printing technologies, printed electronics and photonic crystals.

He has published over 300 academic papers and has been granted more than 100 patents in China, USA, Europe, Japan and Korea. Over his career, he has received many awards from Chinese and international organizations.

Yanlin Song talked to Materials Today about his current research and future plans.

How long has your group been running?

The group has been running since 2001, for 18 years.

How many staff currently makes up your group?

Currently, we have around 50 members of our group, including professors, associate/assistant professors, postdocs, and Ph.D. students.   

What are the major themes of research in your group?

Our research interests include nanomaterials for green printing technology, fabrication and applications of photonic crystals, optical-electrical functional materials, and printed functional devices.

To overcome the problems of heavy pollution and low efficiency associated with the traditional press and printed circuit board industry, we invented a kind of non-photosensitive, non-polluting, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly green printing technology based on the manipulation surface wettability with nanomaterials. So far, we have made breakthroughs in green plate making and water-based inks for plastic gravure printing, which intrinsically reduce environmental pollution and energy consumption. Our green printing technology has been extended to printing electronics, as well as printing and dyeing textiles. We envision that a complete green printing industrial technical chain can be developed based on innovative nanomaterials.

We have also developed a kind of latex particle with a hard-core/soft-shell structure, which can be assembled or printed onto photonic crystals with closely packed structure and high strength. Based on the slow photon effect of 3D photonic crystals and its enhancement effect on fluorescence, the photonic crystals can be used for high sensitivity detection, optical information storage, high-performance solar cell concentrators, light catalysis and so on.

How and why did you come to work in these areas?

I was interested in polymer science and was trained as a material chemist during my graduate studies. Over the past 20 years, I have broadened my research field to include nanomaterials and printing technologies. We have focused on solving the critical challenges facing the printing industry through the use of nanomaterials and nanotechnology to achieve practical environmentally friendly materials and processes. I hope our research on green printing can advance technology innovation and promote technological and economic development.

What facilities and equipment does your lab have?

We have established an equipment platform that covers the surface wettability, macro/nano structural and optical/electrical property characterization to meet the demands of material fabrication, characterization, and processing. We have also developed green plate-making equipment, which is non-photosensitive, non-polluting, and low-cost, and will promote the development of environmentally friendly printing technologies.

Do you have a favorite piece of kit or equipment?

As the most prominent representative of the green printing industry, our green plate-making platform, which covers plate making, base manufacturing, and ink preparation, is my favorite piece of kit. The launch of green plate-making technology could completely solve the environmental pollution problem associated with traditional printing and plate making processes, as well as improving the resolution to the nanoscale, which enables the new concepts, new principles, and new innovation in the printing field.

What do you think has been your most influential work to date?

I think the most interesting work we have done so far is the study of the smallest point, the thinnest line, and the flattest plane in nano green printing. We have observed, the first time, that the motion of water droplets changes from translational before collision to rotational after collision, which is obviously different from Newton’s classical ‘collision law’.

I am also proud to have developed a non-photosensitive, non-polluting, and low-cost green printing technology route based on innovative research into nanomaterials, forming a systematic green printing industrial technology chain including green plate making, green plate base and green ink. We are promoting the application of green printing technology in electronics and other fields.

What is the secret of a successful group?

The key to running a successful group is to have a dream and to unite all the members together behind it. I think the charm of research is in turning ‘impossible’ problems into something ‘possible’. It is fortunate to be engaged in scientific research. It is the source of happiness for the explorer to take a road that has never been traveled, because “the outlook of the world’s magnificence and wonder often lies in the danger and distance, and what one seldom sees”. It’s hard to do scientific research, but it makes us happy because of our dream.

The value of scientific research lies in innovation, bringing personal dreams into the dream of human progress, constantly discovering new phenomena, revealing new rules, and creating new applications.

To turn ‘impossible’ into ‘possible’ requires creativity, effort, perseverance, and more importantly, an idealistic spirit, courage, and self-confidence that ‘though thousands of people have failed, I still try to do’.

How do you plan to develop your group in the future?

From innovative research into nanomaterials, we will further promote the development and application of green printing technology in electronics and other fields. We will continue to cooperate with enterprises to promote the formation and development of a green printing industry chain. We are also developing 3D ink that can be printed directly onto paper to create braille text. The traditional braille printing process is very complex and expensive and the resulting books cannot be preserved for a long time because the embossed points become flat through touching, making the text unreadable. These factors have severely limited the number of Chinese books in braille. We hope that our technology can help people who need it.

Key publications

1. M. Qin, Y. Huang, Y. Li, M. Su, B. Chen, H. Sun, P. Yong, C. Ye, F. Li and Y. L. Song. A rainbow structural-color chip for multisaccharide recognition. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 55 (2016) 6911-6914. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201602582
2. D. Guo, X. Zheng, X. Wang, H. Li, K. Li, Z. Li and Y. L. Song. Formation of Multicomponent Size-Sorted Assembly Patterns by Tunable Templated Dewetting. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 57 (2018) 16126-16130. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201810728
3. M. Su, Z. Huang, Y. Huang, S. Chen, X. Qian, W. Li, Y. Li, W. Pei, H. Chen, F. Li and Y. L. Song. Swarm Intelligence-Inspired Spontaneous Fabrication of Optimal Interconnect at the Micro/Nanoscale. Adv. Mater. 29 (2017) 1605223. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201605223
4. Z. Huang, M. Su, Q. Yang, Z. Li, S. Chen, Y. Li, X. Zhou, F. Li and Y. L. Song. A general patterning approach by manipulating the evolution of two-dimensional liquid foams. Nat. Commun. 8 (2017) 14110. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14110
5. X. Hu, Z. Huang, X. Zhou, P. Li, Y. Wang, Z. Huang, M. Su, W. Ren, F. Li, M. Li, Y. Chen and Y. L. Song. Wearable Large-Scale Perovskite Solar-Power Source via Nanocellular Scaffold. Adv. Mater. 29 (2017) 1703236. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201703236
6. D. Guo, Y. Li, X. Zheng, F. Li, S. Chen, M. Li, Q. Yang, H. Li and Y. L. Song. Programmed Coassembly of One-Dimensional Binary Superstructures by Liquid Soft Confinement. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 140 (2017) 18-21. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.7b09738
7. D. Guo, C. Li, Y. Wang, Y. Li and Y. L. Song. Precise Assembly of Particles for Zigzag or Linear Patterns. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 56 (2017) 15348-15352. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201709115
8. M. Su, Z. Huang, Y. Li, X. Qian, Z. Li, X. Hu, Q. Pan, F. Li, L. Li and Y. L. Song. A 3D Self-Shaping Strategy for Nanoresolution Multicomponent Architectures. Adv. Mater. 30 (2018) 1703963. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201703963
9. Z. Gu, Z. Huang, C. Li, M. Li and Y. L. Song. A general printing approach for scalable growth of perovskite single-crystal films. Sci. Adv. 4 (2018) eaat2390. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat2390
10. Z. Huang, Q. Yang, M. Su, Z. Li, X. Hu, Y. Li, Q. Pan, W. Ren and F. Li, Y. L. Song. A General Approach for Fluid Patterning and Application in Fabricating Microdevices. Adv. Mater. 30 (2018) 1802172. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201802172
11. X. Hu, Z. Huang, F. Li, M. Su, Z. Huang, Z. Zhao, Z. Cai, X. Yang, X. Meng, P. Li, Y. Wang, M. Li, Y. Chen and Y. L. Song. Nacre-inspired crystallization and elastic ‘brick-and-mortar’ structure for a wearable perovskite solar module. Energy Environ. Sci. 12 (2019) 979-987. https://doi.org/10.1039/C8EE01799A
12. H. Li, W. Fang, Y. Li, Q. Yang, M. Li, Q. Li, X. Feng and Y. L. Song. Spontaneous droplets gyrating via asymmetric self-splitting on heterogeneous surfaces. Nat. Commun. 10 (2019) 950. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08919-2