An Interview with Dr. Devin MacKenzie, University of Washington

Recently we were able to interview Dr. Devin MacKenzie from University of Washington.

Question: Devin, could you tell us a bit about your role at University of Washington and the focus of Washington Clean Energy Testbeds?

Answer: Hi, I am the technical director and co-founder at the Washington Clean Energy Testbeds at the University of Washington and I am also a faculty member in Materials Science and Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Our testbeds lab focuses on energy device scaling and advanced additive manufacturing for energy devices and electronics more broadly.

Q: You are a very strong supporter and a recognized leader in flexible and hybrid electronics manufacturing. How did you find your passion for this emerging technology?

A: I did early industry and graduate work in III-V Compound Semiconductor electronics using the most equipment and cost-intensive processes to make high-performance optoelectronics. After seeing where this field was headed I became interested in solution-processed optoelectronics while at the University of Cambridge. I saw this as a disruptive way to more sustainably make optoelectronics and electronics in general at much lower capital costs.  After spinning out the world’s first printed electronics company in the UK, I saw the synergy between low-temperature processing, additive manufacturing, and roll-to-roll processing with flexible electronics. Although we had significant success in areas like OLEDs, I was always troubled by the fact that we often had to make concessions in terms of performance for printed and flexible electronics versus conventional electronics processing. This is a problem for early technologies as competing on cost when production volumes are initially low is difficult and it is hard to convince people to replace higher-performing products with lower-performing ones even if they may be improved in the future.

So it has been my mission to find out how we can exploit the unique capabilities of additive manufacturing to sustainably make electronics that can perform beyond what conventional electronics can do. I truly believe, especially in optoelectronics, this is not just a possibility, but a likely future.

Q: What is a key innovation that will enable widespread adoption of FHE and related technologies, and what application areas are you working in?

A: The ability to directly heterointegrate high-value materials into devices that combine electronic and optical functions is very complex, expensive and sometimes practically impossible with conventional approaches. We take it for granted that we can build, for example,  an OLED on a glass substrate, but this is something very challenging to do in, for example, Si, which has intrinsically poor light-emitting properties itself. It is also very difficult to integrate good light emitters based on other semiconductors, such as GaAs, with Si as the conventional processes of epitaxial growth only work with physically very similar materials and Si is structurally too different from these good emitter materials. In applications such as optical interconnects for next-generation high-speed multichip integration or quantum optical devices for future quantum computing, techniques like high-resolution printing could be fundamental enablers.

Q: You have been an active as a Tech Council Member, Founding Member, Project PI, Project Call Reviewer, and Masterclass/Tutorial Instructor. What upcoming activities are you most excited about?

I am most excited for CHIPs Act-funded programs to use high-resolution printed electronics to help reshore high performance semiconductor manufacturing.

Q: You have been an active member of NextFlex and have participated in a variety of ways. What has the membership experience been like for you?

A: It’s been a very positive experience. I have always been active in the startup world, but NextFlex has allowed me to work with bigger industrial players in aerospace and electronics as well as DOD and government players. It’s also been a learning experience to see how a consortium like this can work at a national level and make an impact.