Between foldable phones and
Corsair's Xeneon Flex, bendable displays have been making their way into consumer electronics for a few years now. But researchers at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have created and demonstrated a thin OLED display that isn’t just flexible, but also stretchable up to twice its original size.
There are surely a multitude of projects flexible and stretchable OLED displays could be useful for, with the researchers touting “wearable electronics and health sensors to foldable computer screens.” The material was developed by
Sihong Wang and Juan de Pablo at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, part of the University of Chicago.
According to the university’s
blog post, creating stretchable OLEDs was indeed the goal of the researchers (inventions / discoveries aren’t always so targeted). Wang noted that current state-of-the-art OLED displays are “very brittle,” with no inherent stretchability.
A cornerstone of material science is that stretchable materials commonly use long polymers with bendable molecular chains. With their advanced polymer knowledge and understanding of both stretching and electroluminescence at the molecular level, the scientists created a framework to engineer optimal materials for OLEDs.
