New generation plastic OLEDs developed

TORONTO - Researchers have developing the world’s most efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) in plastic. OLEDs provide high-contrast and low-energy displays and are becoming the dominant technology for advanced electronic screens.

Current state-of-the-art OLEDs are produced using heavy-metal doped glass in order to achieve high efficiency and brightness, which makes them expensive to manufacture, heavy, rigid and fragile, the journal Nature Photonics reports.

‘For years, the biggest excitement behind OLED technologies has been the potential to effectively produce them on flexible plastic,’ says Zheng-Hong Lu, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada, who supervised the study.

They are already used in some cell phones and other smaller-scale applications, according to a statement from the university.

Plastic use can substantially reduce the cost of production, while providing designers with a more durable and flexible material to use in their products.

The research was led by doctoral candidates Zhibin Wang and Michael G. Helander, who demonstrated the first high-efficiency OLED on plastic.