Customised printer produces working OLED display

According to the team at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, the advance could result in low-cost OLED displays that could be produced using 3D printers by anyone at home. The research is detailed in Science Advances.

The OLED display technology converts electricity into light using an organic material layer. OLEDs function as high quality digital displays, which can be made flexible and used in large-scale devices and handheld electronics. OLED displays are lightweight, power-efficient, thin and flexible, and offer a wide viewing angle and high contrast ratio.

“OLED displays are usually produced in big, expensive, ultra-clean fabrication facilities,” said Michael McAlpine, a University of Minnesota Kuhrmeyer Family Chair Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the senior author of the study. “We wanted to see if we could basically condense all of that down and print an OLED display on our table-top 3D printer, which was custom built and costs about the same as a Tesla Model S.”