UCLA Engineering Develops Flexible & Stretchable LEDs

Imagine an electronic display nearly as clear as a window, or a curtain that illuminates a room, or a smartphone screen that doubles in size, stretching like rubber. Now imagine all of these being made from the same material. Researchers from UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a transparent, stretchable, twistable organic light-emitting device that could one day make all these possible...

"Our new material is the building block for fully stretchable electronics for consumer devices," stated Qibing Pei, a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering and principal investigator on the research.

They proved their point by stretching and restretching the OLED 1,000 times, elongating it by 30%. Despite that, it worked fine, though perhaps not at the original level. Hopefully, some final touches will probably remove wear almost completely, making this dream come to life.

A single layer of an electro-luminescent polymer blend was used to make the material, sandwiched between a pair of new transparent elastic composite electrodes (each a network of silver nanowires inlaid into a rubbery polymer).

Check out the video below.