— part of the Researchers Shaping The Future Series —

It’s my great pleasure to introduce…

Kaspar Snashall

About Kaspar

I’m a PhD student in electronics engineering at the University of Surrey in my third year. I previously studied experimental physics at Trinity College Dublin.

Snapshot of Kaspar’s Research

I work on creating inkjet printable and flexible electronics for mobile phones and communications devices.

Kaspar on LinkedIn

Insights From Kaspar

Elaine…  While we were talking and sharing public engagement ideas at the recent Doctoral College event, your enthusiasm for your research was obvious.  Please could you share why doing research in this area is important to you personally.

Kaspar…  Humans are social creatures and we like to communicate with one another.  My research is particularly interesting to me as I get to facilitate this communication and find new ways of creating devices that aid in communication.

I find it fascinating that you can use a slightly modified inkjet printer and print out what ever circuit or antenna that you’d like with almost no restriction on the shape.  Then within a few minutes, and a bit of heat, you can hook it up to a generator and use it to send a signal to another person miles away.

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Elaine…  Moving from the personal to the bigger picture.  What difference do you believe your research could make and to whom.  In other words, why does your research matter?

Kaspar…  My research focuses on creating printable switches the Internet of Things (IOT) and 5G communications devices.  Currently such switches are extremely expensive and would be one of the main costs in the device, with large systems requiring hundreds of switches.

Using inkjet printing and nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes we hope to bring down the cost of these switches.

Inkjet printing can also make devices on plastic helping to bring down their cost further and to allow the devices to be flexible.  Flexible devices could then be attached to clothing, curved surfaces, or used in lightweight sensors which have applications in health, defence, and civil areas.

 

Header image by InspiredImages on Pixabay