Flexi display technology is now

October 2, 2008

Rigid television screens, bulky laptops and still image posters are to be a thing of the past as new research, published today, Thursday, 2 October, in the New Journal of Physics, heralds the beginning of a technological revolution for screen displays.

Screen display technology is taking a significant step forward as researchers from Sony and the Max Planck Institute demonstrate the possibility of bendable optically assessed organic light emitting displays for the first time, based on red or IR-A light upconversion.

The paper, 'Annihilation Assisted Upconversion: All-Organic, Flexible and Transparent Multicolour Display', makes feasible the design of computers that can be folded up and put in your pocket, the mass-production of moving image posters for display advertising, televisions which can be bended to view or, even, newspaper display technology which allows readers to upload daily news to an easy-to-carry display contraption.

All organic, upconversion multicolour displays have significant advantages when compared to the traditional technology used for projection displays and televisions. Namely UC displays are:

-- All-organic − transparent and flexible
-- Ultra low excitation intensity (red or IR)– less than 15 mWcm-2
-- Emissive display – no speckles
-- Coherent or non-coherent excitation allowed
-- High efficiency – at the moment ca. 6 %
-- Fast response times – ca. 1 µs up to 500 µs on request (LCDs have ms)
-- Almost unlimited viewing angle – up to the total internal reflection angle
-- Tailoring of emitted colours realised even when using the same excitation source
-- Multilayer Displays
-- Size limited only by the size of the substrates

With LCD-based projection displays, the liquid crystal acts as a filter for the light being shone through so when coherent excitation is used (e.g. laser diodes) the problems with speckles are serious. For this organic emissive UC displays, the organic molecules themselves emit non-coherent light in 4 (all directions) to produce an image.

Sony announced the development of flexible OLED display screens in 2006 but glitches such as size and resolution limitations, and the difficulty of structuring the organic compounds so as not to be distorted when bent, have stopped designs coming to market. This new technology for optically excited organic emissive displays hasn't got this problem and gives further opportunities for new applications.

The research published today concludes through the use of a new structure and unique combinations for the organic compounds within viscous polymeric matrix, that there need be no size or resolution limitations for the new screens.

The researchers conclude, "To the best of our knowledge we demonstrate for the first time a versatile colour all-organic and transparent UC-display. The reported displays are also flexible and have excellent brightness."

Citation: The published version of the paper "Annihilation Assisted Upconversion: All-Organic, Flexible and Transparent Multicolour Display" (Miteva T, Yakutkin V, Nelles G and Baluschev S 2008 New J. Phys. 10 103002) will be available online from Thursday, 2 October. It will be available at http://stacks.iop.org/NJP/10/103002 .

Source: Institute of Physics


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  • Szkeptik - Oct 02, 2008
    • Rank: 5 / 5 (4)
    Nice. When do we get to buy them in the store on affordable prices?
  • bredmond - Oct 02, 2008
    • Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
    Nice. When do we get to buy them in the store on affordable prices?
    Yeah, you beat me to it by 12 minutes. So when can I buy one? I cant wait to wallpaper my whole apartment with this stuff.

    Also, are these things i can look at at night right before i go to bed without affecting my circadian rhythm? backlit screens have that effect im told. and can this be incorporated with touch screen technology like in the iphone?
  • CreepyD - Oct 02, 2008
    • Rank: 5 / 5 (4)
    Same here. Surely it can't be called a 'now' product unless you can buy it in the shops.
  • tkjtkj - Oct 02, 2008
    • Rank: 3 / 5 (2)
    Why oh why, when an article 'begs'
    for some photo to reveal important
    details, whY does physorg not
    require them?? Eg, one person's
    'transparency' is another's
    'cloudy image'; one's
    'flexibility' is another's
    'stiffness' ! The total lack of
    info about costs, also,
    contributes to the story's relevence
    to our daily lives.
  • holmstar - Oct 02, 2008
    • Rank: not rated yet
    *sarcasm:* I can't wait for animated toy and sugary cereal boxes
  • Minnaloushe - Oct 02, 2008
    • Rank: not rated yet
    And how about full-motion instructional videos on things (condom wrappers, suppositories... )?. Eeek.
  • Mombo_Dogface - Oct 02, 2008
    • Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
    Forget the condom wrapper, the condom itself will have ads on it! LOL
  • Arikin - Oct 03, 2008
    • Rank: not rated yet
    They probably say available now so some company will get interested in it. Things like E-Ink didn't generate much interest.

    Then comes the manufacturing flow layout and design (Large investment here). Next sell the idea to companies that can incorporate the basic screen into their products. Lastly, these companies start the advertising gears rolling.

    Things take time :-)
  • Soylent - Oct 03, 2008
    • Rank: not rated yet
    Also, are these things i can look at at night right before i go to bed without affecting my circadian rhythm?


    No. Any strong light source has that effect.
  • FL10 - Oct 03, 2008
    • Rank: not rated yet
    Sounds very interesting indeed. But as previous comments suggest. A price tag or release-date would be much appreciated.
  • QubitTamer - Oct 03, 2008
    • Rank: 3 / 5 (1)
    Screw covering everything in displays...

    Shrink the technology's pixel scale down a bit and build it right into contact lenses. Power the lenses with nanowires around the eye socket that generate a magnetic field or use the recent power-over-air transmission technology and you can have all the imagery you want beamed to you wirelessly. Embed more nanowires in the hands and arms and you have the control mechanism for a 24/7 virtual immersion environment. You would no longer need discrete displays for ANYTHING as you would simply choose to tune in and look at whatever broadcast or internet content sources were provided to you wirelessly..
  • Flakk - Oct 04, 2008
    • Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
    Forget the condom wrapper, the condom itself will have ads on it! LOL


    I doub't it'll be ads on the condom......no one would see it. Scrolling words would be nice. Things like "Big Ben" or "Disapointment" come to mind.
  • earls - Oct 06, 2008
    • Rank: not rated yet
    You can literally get fucked by Corporate America.
  • lengould100 - Oct 07, 2008
    • Rank: not rated yet
    Actually I think you'll find that Sony's part of "corporate Japan".

October 2, 2008 all stories

Comments: 14

4.6 /5 (63 votes)
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