How Plastic Money Could Spawn Paper-thin Electronics

This spring, astronaut Chris Hadfield unveiled the currency of Canada’s future by spinning a banknote in zero gravity. It was a (Canadian) $5 bill, the latest to be made not of paper or cotton fiber but of polymer.

The purpose is ostensibly to deter counterfeiters, with a side-effect of increased durability (2.5 times as durable, according to the Bank of Canada). But an even more distant side-effect is now being explored in Australia, by the research institution that spawned plastic money in the first place: printable solar power.