IT House January 10 news, at present, OLED screens are one of the most expensive components of mobile phones and laptops, especially flexible screens, if there is a way to produce them cheaper, the price of such components will fall further, allowing manufacturers to focus on other important areas of technological advancement. Recently, a team of scientists at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities successfully created a flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display in 3D printing for the first time.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota twin cities used a combination of methods to create the world's first fully 3D printed flexible OLED panel. They print active luminescent layer components at room temperature while using the same 3D printer to create "electrodes, interconnects, insulation, and encapsulation."
Finally, they got a 1.5-inch OLED display that could bend, with a total of 64 pixels, all working and displaying images, showing relative stability in 2,000 bends, suggesting that a fully 3D printed OLED could be used in soft electronic devices and wearables.
OLED displays are typically produced in large, expensive, ultra-clean manufacturing facilities, and the team successfully printed an OLED display using only a desktop 3D printer. IT House learned that the printer was customized and cost about the same as the Tesla Model S.
The team's next goal now is to increase the pixel density and peak brightness levels of 3D printed OLED displays to make the technology suitable for use in retail electronic devices.