LG-Philips makes flexible display with oil, water

LG-Philips has used oil and water contained in tiny plastic cells connected to plastic electrodes for making the pixels of its organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).

If you have been following our blog regularly, you might well be aware that the latest display in the offing is the bendable OLED screen. There’s lot of research going into the technology, especially to iron out some limitations like overheating.

Apparently, current flexible OLED displays get hotter than the plastic substrate, making manufacture difficult and expensive.
LG Philips has managed to address that problem and made the next breakthrough by creating pixels out of oil and water connected to plastic electrodes. The oil, which is opaque, floats on the water and obscures a colored surface beneath. Applying an electric field forces the oil away from the water, revealing the colored layer beneath and changing the color of the pixel.

The process is cheap and simple and works at low temperatures, claims the company in its patent application. But we have to wait a little longer for the technology to be commercially available. Right now, the flexible displays are so slow that they can be used only for still images.

[ Via engadget ] [ Via newscientisttech ]