News

Technology pioneer brings team to University of Melbourne

Media Release, Monday 10 May 2004

One of the brightest lights in international polymer chemistry, Professor Andrew Holmes, is relocating his Cambridge University research team to the University of Melbourne's $100 million Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute.

The recipient of a Federation Fellowship, Professor Holmes and his team have developed the technology for a future generation of ultra thin and light video screens; 'molecular fishhooks' for medical research; and for the use of carbon dioxide to replace toxic solvents. The team bridges the gap between biology, material science and industry.

Today the Victorian Minister for Innovation John Brumby announced that Professor Holmes was the inaugural winner of a $530,000 Innovation Fellowship, awarded by the Victorian Endowment for Science, Knowledge and Innovation (VESKI), a $10 million trust fund set up by the Victorian Government to attract outstanding expatriate Australian researchers back to Australia.

A graduate of the University of Melbourne, Professor Holmes made international headlines in the 1990s as the co-inventor of the world's first light-emitting polymers.

The electrically semiconductive plastics emit bright, pure colours of light when an electrical current is passed through them. They promise to transform display technology for televisions, computers and electronic devices, with lightweight, super-thin, flexible video screens bright enough to be viewed even in direct sunlight.

Professor Holmes says that while small screens using his technology are already in use, the next generation will be bigger, brighter and developed in Melbourne.

"My research at Cambridge has already resulted in commercial applications for our technology," he said. "Now that we are relocating our research team to the Bio21 Institute, I hope to realise quite different opportunities through collaborations and partnerships with the world-class biological sciences groups working here in Melbourne.

"We come to this with open minds, a willingness to collaborate with many disciplines, and to share our science. The real future is in multidisciplinary science on a global scale," says Professor Holmes.

Coloured red-green-blue dots can be 'printed' onto transistors on silicon chips with an ordinary inkjet printer to create flat, super-bright video screens viewable almost through 180 degrees - even in daylight. Japan's Seiko-Epson has recently demonstrated a 12½ inch diagonal full-colour video screen produced in this way.

Potential applications include TV and computer screens (the low power consumption of polymer screens is well suited to laptops), alphanumeric displays for electronic devices, and advertising signs. Single-colour, alphanumeric displays have already been commercialised in a shaver battery readout as used by James Bond to shave off his beard in the most recent movie 'Die Another Day'.