Sign up for a new account or log in here:
Samsung researchers in South Korea have designed and built a prototype of a seamless foldable Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) display. The display's mechanical and optical robustness were tested by performing 100,000 folding-unfolding cycles. The relative brightness at the junction decreased by just 6 percent, which is hardly recognizable by the human eye and so the deterioration can be considered negligible. The findings have been published in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters.
The display consists of two AMOLED panels, silicone rubber (a hyperelastic material), a module case, and a protective glass cover (which not only prevents scratches but can also serve as a touch screen). The display has a very small folding radius of just 1 mm, so that one panel lies almost completely on top of the other when the display is folded at a 180° angle. "All the materials in a foldable window unit (glasses and silicone rubber) must have almost the same optical properties and attach to each other strongly without any optical property change," coauthor HongShik Shim of the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology told PhysOrg.
In their study, the researchers explain that most flexible displays, which are becoming increasingly more viable and interesting to mobile companies, are bendable or rollable to avoid the creases that occur from folding a material completely in half. The researchers have overcome this problem by creating an AMOLED display with no visible crease: the key to pulling this off is to control the optical properties of the materials.
Some believe that foldable displays could be the future of mobile devices as they solve the problem of minimizing the size of the device while simultaneously maximizing the size of the display. A display that can fold completely in half is the best way to achieve this goal, but so far it has been a challenge to eliminate the visible crease between panels. Now that obstacle has been surmounted, at least in the prototype phase.
User Comments: 49
Got something to say? Post a comment-
Just think... a phone that can fold out to a tablet. Thanks for the very interesting article.
-
Hmm... interesting. We've all been dreaming of folding display panels for years, maybe someday we'll actually get one?
-
Wow.Sometimes I worry:what will we leave for future generations to achieve?
-
freythman said:
modeazy said:Wow.Sometimes I worry:what will we leave for future generations to achieve?
Time travel. Teleportation. We have a long way to go.
-
princeton said:
Make an e book reader that you can hold like an actual book by using each screen for a page.
-
"Time travel. Teleportation. We have a long way to go."
World peace, no more hungry people, justice, no more killing, people don't using time travel or teleportation to kick somebody else ***?, we hace a looooong way to go.
-
freythman said:modeazy said:
Wow.Sometimes I worry:what will we leave for future generations to achieve?
Time travel. Teleportation. We have a long way to go.
Time Travel cannot exist and they have already created working teleportation , albeit on a very small scale. They have already created an invisible cloak and levitated a tiny piece of gold, again, on very basic and/or small scale but the technology is still there in its infant form.
How about they sort out global warming...
-
Lokalaskurar said:
scshadow said:Just think... a phone that can fold out to a tablet. Thanks for the very interesting article.
People in 2050 will pick out their watches, pop them open - out comes a crumbled piece of cellphone. They shake it once, it unfolds to the size of a tablet, wow - the future is near
Based on Nikola Tesla's work in the fields of electromagnetism, scientists have also levitated several ferromagnetic objects ranging from metal bowling-balls to a package of yoghurt.
-
pinothyj said:freythman said:modeazy said:
Wow.Sometimes I worry:what will we leave for future generations to achieve?
Time travel. Teleportation. We have a long way to go.
Time Travel cannot exist and they have already created working teleportation , albeit on a very small scale. They have already created an invisible cloak and levitated a tiny piece of gold, again, on very basic and/or small scale but the technology is still there in its infant form.
How about they sort out global warming...
You should really say, traveling back in time cannot exist. Traveling into the future is possible, Albert Einstein theory of relativity proves this.
A very promising hardware development neither the less.
-
You won't be alive when they make spaceships capable of interstellar travel.
;_;
-
They won't make spaceships capable of interstellar travel.
-
matrix86 said:
neofryboy said:They won't make spaceships capable of interstellar travel.
Not at the rate they're going, lol. We're just taking steps backwards, it seems.
-
I never knew that yogurt was ferromagnetic
Based on Nikola Tesla's work in the fields of electromagnetism, scientists have also levitated several ferromagnetic objects ranging from metal bowling-balls to a package of yoghurt.
-
Arris said:
Now awaiting Nintendo to jump on this technology for next gen "Game & Watch".
-
"How about they sort out global warming..."
I read somewhere that they have a possible solution already.
-
Silly gizmos that make you think less. Why exercise your memory when you have all the info you need with you, right ? I'm not the alarmist type, but a time will come when the "information age" that's supposed to help us will be our downfall.
Am I the only one that misses live concerts where people would sway their lighters and not put up their cells to take a shot ?
-
Yeah, go to Pulto get a chunk of ice and drop it in the ocean, job sorted.
-
Cellphones, tablets? Come on people, I'm thinking of ePaper, as in a screen the size of a normal piece of paper, and about as thick as a piece of posterboard or construction paper that is self powering and pulls its display via wifi/NFC, etc.
Guest@4:49 AM: Or worse yet, they have a lighter app on their phones to "simulate" having a lighter... Where's the fun in that? =/
-
Wagan8r said:
pinothyj said:How about they sort out global warming...
Haha, that's a good one!
Oh, wait. You were serious...
-
neofryboy said:
They won't make spaceships capable of interstellar travel.
Yeah, I know.
It's like those ****** in the middle ages who thought men couldn't fly.
Oh wait...
-
Time travel into the future happens constantly... GPS sattelites are adjusted for it, and astronauts aboard the IIS age about 30seconds less over the course of a few months than they would have if they had stayed on earth. Regarding into the past... to quote stephen hawking... "I've never met anyone from the future'. (cause it's impossible)
How about something useful, like fusion. Or something that really improves my quality of life like something to make my morning commute obsolete.
-
How about something useful, like fusion.
Fusion is 10 years away.
-
Hey I'll comment just to make a snide comment...
Oh wait...
Dont be smart arses please. Technology is flying at exponential incresing speed.
-
Cota said:
[Sarcasm]Really innovating, magnificent, amazing, cool and great, but it needs a stapler
[/Sarcasm] -
ramonsterns said:
Yeah, I know. It's like those ****** in the middle ages who thought men couldn't fly. Oh wait...
People in the middle ages were uneducated.
Mankind merely expands and improves on current technologies without ever inventing anything new, but you can't bootstrap space travel.
Most Popular
| Trending | Featured |
Featured on Routers
Subscribe to TechSpot
Get free exclusive content, learn about new features and breaking tech news.