High-efficiency plastic OLED display developed

Sara Ver-Bruggen - 31 Oct 2011

Researchers at the University of Toronto, Canada, have demonstrated high-efficiency plastic OLED displays. Device performance is equivalent to commercial glass-based OLED versions.

The OLED on plastic demonstrator, fabricated on lab equipment by researchers Zhibin Wang and Michael Helander, is able to produce a high-refractive index property previously achieved with heavy metal-doped glass. Their device uses a nanoscale layer of an advanced optical thin-film coating material known as tantalum (V) oxide (Ta₂O₅) fabricated on a flexible plastic substrate.

OLEDs provide high-contrast and low-energy displays that are rapidly becoming the dominant technology for advanced electronic screens. They are already used in some mobile phone and other smaller-scale applications.

Manufacturing

Helander says the next step is to scale up the production of the device onto larger-area substrates, suitable for high-volume, roll-to-roll production techniques similar to those used for printing newspapers.

Wang and Helander started work on the flexible OLED device two years ago, building on previous initial work undertaken by Wang. Helander suggests that plastic small-area OLED devices will enter commercial production soon, while large-area flexible television devices are still several years away.

Flexible plans

Producing electronic information displays on plastic using advanced materials such as OLEDs will enable lower-cost production by enabling much thinner displays to be manufactured using less material. These displays could also be more easily integrated into consumer electronic designs and produced at high speeds in high volumes.

In South Korea Samsung, the world's largest supplier of OLED displays, has indicated it will introduce flexible displays in the first half of 2012, initially for mobile and tablet devices. As well as investing in active matrix (AM)OLED production lines and capacity, Samsung also bought Liquavista, a European developer of flexible electrowetting display technology.

In 2012 Japan's TDK was also expected to commercialise its OLED displays on plastic in consumer electronic devices such as smartphones. The company announced it would start the mass-production of these displays by the end of 2011. However TDK announced in September 2011 that it was selling its Micro Device business (largely responsible for TDK's OLED efforts) to displays firm Futaba.

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