Flexible approach to organic display screens

It was two years ago when Sony proudly announced the development of flexible display screens that use organic material. So just where are our bendy screens!

However, issues with size, resolution and image distortions have stopped the technology hitting the shops. So Sony has gone back to the drawing board and with the help of the Max Planck Institute, Germany has designed new optically excited organic emissive displays that have a much higher spec.

Commercially viable bendy screens could herald a revolution in the way we view digital media - bendable TVs and computers, moving image posters, even a reusable and foldable newspaper that uploads the daily news. Their paper, Annihilation Assisted Upconversion: All-Organic, Flexible, Transparent Multicolour Display, describes how the upconversion of red and infra-red light and new combinations of organic compounds has solved Sony’s past problems. Their new method would mean that flexible screens would not cause a reduction in the quality from what we are used to from LCD displays.

The so-called ‘UC screens’ are transparent and flexible while consuming less power, handling fast-moving images better and offering better colour reproduction than competing technologies. As the organic molecules produce their own light there is no need for a backlight in UC screens so they can be ultrathin and also boast unlimited viewing angle as the light emits in all directions.

Sony unveiled their 11inch, 0.3mm thick prototype at CEATEC 2008 exhibition in Japan however they did not predict when we would see the technology on the high street.

By Leila Sattary