Professor Kyung Cheol Choi and his team from the Korea Institute of Electrical Engineering, they have made remarkable achievements in ultra-thin light-emitting diodes.
The study, outdoor led panel by doctoral candidate Seonil Kwon, was published online Dec. 6 in the international nano journal, Nano Letters. According to the team’s prediction, this efficient and long-lasting light-emitting diode technology will be widely used in wearable displays.
Current wearable displays are generally based on OLED screens. Due to the size limitation of wearable devices, the existing screens cannot achieve good display effects.
In order to solve this problem, kyung’s team designed an OLED structure that is compatible with fibers. By dip-coating the three-dimensional structure of fibers, the group successfully designed a fiber-based OLED light-emitting diode.
The team also demonstrated a 90 percent current efficiency for the fiber organic diode withstanding a 4.3 percent tensile strain while remaining open. Also, they can be woven into textiles and knitted garments without causing any problems.
Additionally, this technique allows organic diodes to be fabricated on fibers thinner than a human hair. It should be noted that all work is carried out in a low temperature environment of minus 105 degrees.
Professor Choi said: “Existing wearable displays have limited applicability due to their low performance, however, this technology can fabricate high-performance fiber-optic organic diodes, and this simple, low-cost process provides Fiber optic wearable displays open a path to commercialization.”