OLED smartphones that grow like rubber are coming out

Input 2021.03.14 13:15

Smartphones that change the size and shape of the screen can be released with organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) that stretch like rubber.

The Korea Research Foundation (NRF) announced on the 14th that the research team of Yonsei University Professor Park Jin-woo has developed an OLED that stretches like a rubber by making all parts out of stretchable materials.

Previously, hard OLEDs were arranged like islands on a stretchable board and tried to implement a stretchable OLED by connecting them with flexible wires. However, the combination of rigid OLED and flexible wire had to lower the density of the device in order to withstand high tensile capacity. There is a problem in the application of a display that requires a high number of pixels, and the manufacturing process is also complicated.

The research team focused on the material, not the structure. All materials constituting the OLED (substrate, anode, hole transport layer, light emitting layer, electron transport layer, and anode) were implemented to be stretchable. The three primary colors of the display, red, green, and blue, can be implemented with more than a certain efficiency under a tensile stress of 60 to 80%. It operates stably even when deformation is applied to the stretchable OLED device with a pointed ballpoint pen core with a low radius of curvature.

The research team revealed that using stretchable OLEDs, smartphones that change the screen size or shape, wearable devices that adhere to the skin, and three-dimensional tactile displays can be implemented.

This research was carried out with the support of the mid-sized research support project promoted by the Ministry of Science, ICT and ICT and the NRF. The findings were published online in February in Science Advances.

Reporter Kim Pyeong-hwa [email protected]

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