OLED remains lit despite being stretched and folded

OLED technology is used today in screens for many smartphones and some televisions.

It is claimed the new ultra-stretchable OLED material developed at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science could lead to foldable and expandable screens for new classes of smartphones and other personal electronic devices; electronics-integrated clothing; wallpaper-like lighting; new minimally invasive medical tools; and many other applications.

‘Our new material is the building block for fully stretchable electronics for consumer devices,’ said Qibing Pei, a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering and principal investigator on the research. ‘Along with the development of stretchable thin-film transistors, we believe that fully stretchable interactive OLED displays that are as thin as wallpaper will be achieved in the near future. And this will give creative electronics designers new dimensions to exploit.’

The research is published online in Nature Photonics. The lead author of the study is Jiajie Liang, a postdoctoral scholar in Pei’s Soft Materials Research Laboratory at UCLA.