Coating technique 'unlocks full potential of OLEDs on plastic'

The team from the University of Toronto is researching an advanced coating technique that it says will significantly reduce the cost of manufacturing OLEDs — which currently rely on rigid glass — and allow the production of different-shaped devices.

‘For years, the biggest excitement behind OLED technologies has been the potential to effectively produce them on flexible plastic,’ said materials-science and engineering professor Zheng-Hong Lu, the research supervisor on the project.

‘This discovery unlocks the full potential of OLEDs, leading the way to energy-efficient, flexible and impact-resistant displays.’

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

The research leaders, PhD students Zhibin Wang and Michael Helander, claim that the technique has allowed them to create the highest-efficiency OLED device ever reported with a glass-free design.