Researchers from Korea report progress in the field of flexible displays
Some owners of new iPhone 6 devices were dismayed in the fall of 2014 when they discovered that their devices bent slightly in their pockets. Apple responded that the malfunction is extremely rare and that the products meet strict durability standards. And yet, there are electronics companies that actually want their products to be able to bend - on purpose.
For years, materials engineers have been working on components that can be folded and rolled. In an article published in September 2014 in the journal APL Materials, researchers from the Korean National University in Seoul described a recent achievement in the field of displays: flexible LED displays that could possibly replace today's screens that tend to break. At the beginning of the process, the scientists grew layers of microscopic wires of the light-emitting crystalline material gallium nitrogen (GaN) on a thin graphene network. Graphene is a material built from a single layer of carbon atoms endowed with flexibility, strength and electrical conductivity. Then they peeled off the graphene-LED sheets from the copper substrate on which they made them and glued them to a flexible plastic material. This is how they achieved the first step towards a flexible monitor.
The blue LED bulb, which is found in most LCD screens today, and whose inventors won the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2014, is based on gallium nitrogen because it is energy efficient and emits a strong light. But it is difficult to form layers of gallium nitrogen on a flexible surface. The Korean group's new LED device, which shines well even after more than 1,000 bends, seems to present a balanced compromise between quality and flexibility. If the researchers are able to attach these sheets to each other and assemble a complete display, LED displays of this type can be used in the future in flexible phones that can bend - on purpose.
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