Flexible OLED Displays
Thin, light, and rollable displays
Ultrathin, lightweight, and flexible displays are required for practically bringing large screens to ordinary homes to take full advantage of UHD images (Fig. 1). They also accommodate diverse viewing styles because they can fit onto various objects due to their flexibility; therefore, they may offer possibilities of a wide range of uses and increased points of contact with media content.
As part of our ongoing research, a 30-inch 4K flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display formed on a plastic film has been prototyped in cooperation with Sharp Corporation (Fig. 2). This OLED panel is about 0.5 mm thick and weighs only 100 g. The minimum bending diameter is about 40 mm.
The unique point of this display is that, in a world’s first, red / green / blue OLEDs are formed in each pixel (i.e., there is no color filter associated with white OLEDs) on a 30-inch plastic film. The resolution is 147 pixels per inch. The brightness uniformity across the screen is enhanced by special signal processing.
NHK STRL will continue research and development on elemental technologies for large and rollable 8K displays.