“A better understanding of flexible and even printed electronics – their potential and limitations – is key to delivering next-generation mobile and wearable devices.”

Gerwin Gelinck is Part-time Professor in the Department of Applied Physics, part of the Molecular Materials and Nanosystems group and chair of Flexible, Large-area Electronics. Flexible and printed thin-film transistors are important for a broad range of applications – foldable and rollable displays come to mind, but also medical X-ray detectors, electronic skin and retinal implants. Gelinck’s expertise in this field is the result of a career-long interest, from his PhD in electrical functional polymers through organic thin-film transistor research at Philips to his decade-long appointment at the Holst Centre, leading a large team of researchers working on flexible, large-area electronics. His mandate as professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) is to explore future and emerging applications of these interesting electronics.

In addition, Gelinck also has extensive skill in business and strategy. As Program Director at TNO, he focuses not only on R&D innovation management but also on business, consortium and talent development.

His research interests include novel solution-processed semiconductors, fundamental charge and energy transport in these disordered materials in thin-film transistors and photodiodes, and applications based on these materials/devices.

Gerwin Gelinck studied Solid State Chemistry at the University of Nijmegen from 1988 to 1994 and obtained his PhD from the Technical University of Delft on the photophysics of semiconducting polymers in 1998. In that same year, Gelinck joined Philips Research as Senior Scientist. He co-founded Polymer Vision and worked there as Chief Scientist until 2006. Since January 2007, Gelinck is leading an international team of researchers that work on flexible, large-area electronics at the Holst Centre/TNO. He was appointed part-time professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in 2014 and became Research Fellow at TNO in 2015.