How much more efficiently could they be run if Friend's organic polymers replaced silicon?

FORBES: Innovators

It is conceivable that organic circuits will someday overtake silicon in the race to electronic miniaturization.

FORBES: The science of small

Unlike traditional semiconductors, which are crystals of elements such as silicon and germanium, organic semiconductors are more complex versions of the chemicals from which plastics are made.

ECONOMIST: Robotics

At the moment, organic molecules can't yet beat silicon in photovoltaics.

FORBES: Innovators

The company founders were researching how small silicon compounds and calcium could bind to leaves and other organic material to produce fossils.

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The material is an organic photovoltaic semiconductor (called rr-P3HT) which, unlike the metal or silicon-based materials used until now for such biotechnological interfaces, is soft, light, flexible and highly biocompatible and naturally sensitive to visible light.

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