Headlines: New Electronic Displays That Fold and Expand

September 27, 2013 – Researchers have invented an elastic, transparent, organic light-emitting device (OLED) that is flexible and can be used with smartphones and other electronic devices including the potential to turn clothing into electronic screens. When stretched 1,000 times the OLED continued to work without any loss of physical integrity.

The material is multi-layered. One layer is an electro-luminescent polymer. It is sandwiched between transparent elastic composite electrodes made from embedded silver nanowires.

Jiajie Liang, one of the team at the UCLA Soft Materials Research Laboratory, that developed the OLED states, “Our new transparent, elastic composite electrode has high visual transparency, good surface electrical conductivity, high stretchability and high surface smoothness — all features essential to the fabrication of the stretchable OLED.”

Watch the YouTube video to see the OLED in action.