An elastic light-emitting polymer that glows like a filament in a light bulb could lead to affordable, practical and robust flexible screens.
Flexible screens could form part of wearable computers that stick to our skin and do away with the need to carry a separate smartphone or laptop. But the various existing flexible displays all have flaws: they either require high voltages to run, are too fragile, too expensive, not bendy enough or lack brightness.
at Stanford University in California and her colleagues have created a light-emitting plastic material that can be stretched up to twice its original length without tearing. The polymer is up to twice as bright as smartphone screens and retains 80 per cent of its brightness even after being stretched 100 times.
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When an electrical charge is passed through the material, it causes photons to be emitted, creating red, green or blue light. A thin film of the material can be stuck onto human skin and doesn鈥檛 rip when it bends or flexes.
So far, the researchers have demonstrated small, static examples of the films in single colours. To be useful for devices, they will need to develop a larger version with discrete pixels and control technology to allow the image on the screen to change.
If the polymer can be combined with the flexible control technology that sits behind existing rigid displays, it could be 鈥渁 huge advance over what we have currently鈥�, says at the University of Oxford.
鈥淲hy are we stuck with form factors that are rectangular? We need to be talking about displays as an interactive tool,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd if you want to be able to interact with it naturally, it can鈥檛 just be on a flat surface, it should be on bendable surfaces, so you can interact with it more seamlessly.鈥�
Bhaskaran says that many manufacturers have demonstrated flexible displays that have flaws or prohibitive cost. But a light-emitting polymer that is robust and cheap to manufacture could make new types of smart device practical.
鈥淭he problem is not really can you make it, the problem really is can you make it at a cost that the market can handle,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 really where all of this is going.鈥�
Nature
