2023-04-19 15:42:27
Researchers at the University of Chicago have designed a thin digital display so flexible it can be wrapped around a person’s wrist, bent in all directions, or curved over a car’s steering wheel. Stretchable electroluminescent materials are the key components to realize skin displays with optical biostimulation.
Since the 2010s, many university laboratories have been working on polymers. Printed electronics often rely on organic materials like polymers which can be easily processed and fabricated as opposed to traditional electronics (or metallic electronics) which rely on inorganics such as copper or silicon. Polymers can be made into thinner, lighter and more economical electronic components and organic solar cells.
One of the most important components of nearly every consumer electronic device we use today is a display on a screen, but a whole new display technology is on the way. The material is said to have a wide range of applications, from wearable electronics and health sensors to foldable computer screens. The research team has already developed stretchable neuromorphic computer chips that can collect and analyze health data on a sort of flexible band-aid. The ability to now create malleable stretch displays adds to its growing suite of tools for next-generation wearable electronics.
The screens of many devices use OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology, which sandwiches small organic molecules between the conductors, and when an electric current is turned on, the small molecules emit bright light. The technology is more energy efficient than older LED and LCD screens and delivers much sharper images. However, the molecular building blocks of OLEDs have tight chemical bonds and rigid structures. The materials currently used in OLED screens are very brittle, they are not stretchable at all. The researchers’ goal was to create something that maintained the electroluminescence of OLED, but with stretchable polymers. To imbue materials with extensibility, long polymers with bendable molecular chains are needed, and molecular structures were also needed to emit light very efficiently.
The materials currently used in these state-of-the-art OLED screens are very brittle; they have no extensibility
Key Features
Using computer predictions for new flexible light-emitting polymers, the team was able to build several prototypes in which the materials were flexible, stretchable, shiny, durable, and energy efficient. A key feature of their design was the use of fluorescence thermally activated retarder, which allowed the materials to convert electrical energy into light, very efficiently. This third-generation mechanism for organic emitters can provide materials with performance comparable to commercial OLED technologies.
Bendable materials that emit light can not only be used to display information, but can be incorporated into wearable sensors that require light. Sensors measuring blood oxygenation and heart rate, for example, typically shine a light through blood vessels to detect blood flow.
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