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ABSTRACT
This seminar topic deals with ecological and economic aspects of flexible display along with some technical aspects of and applications. The basic functioning of the displays is discussed, as well as a few of its major implementations and concurrent developments. The core of the topic is an analysis of the economic and ecological impact of the aforementioned applications.
We all want a laptop display that looks as if it was printed on paper, where texts and images would not wash out in bright light and can be view from any angle. Better yet we want displays that can be conjured from our pockets and unrolled to access information anywhere while wireless internet keeps our roll-up display continuously updated. Some day food packages will display health messages and clothing will have displays sewn into the fabrics. You might think of these exciting prospects and doubt their validity. The truth is flexible displays are not commercialized yet, but they are on the brink of becoming a reality as enabling technologies pave the way. Currently there are four types of flexible display close to commercialization, flexible liquid crystal display, flexible organic light emitting diode, gyricon displays, and electrophoretic displays.
INTRODUCTION
A durable and flexible display with low-power consumption, high-contrast ratio, has been a technical challenge for years. They have to be lightweight, rugged, and in some cases, conformal, wearable, rollable and unbreakable. The recent successful integration of flexible display technologies and the traditional web-based processing and/or inkjet technologies has opened up the possibility of low cost and high throughput roll-toroll manufacturing and has shown the potential to replace the paper used today.
A flexible display cannot rely on a normal layer of glass as used in displays common at the time since glass does not fulfill the criteria of flexibility. Instead of glass it is possible to build displays on metal foil and a variety of plastics, each of which pose many difficult issues waiting to be resolved. For example, a plastic substrate replacing glass would need to over some properties of glass, i.e. clarity, dimensional stability, thermal stability, barrier, solvent resistance and a low coefficient of thermal expansion coupled with a smooth surface. No plastic isomers all these properties, yet, so any plastic-based substrate will almost certainly be a multilayer composite structure.
1. ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES
Before introducing the different types of flex displays, an overview of the enabling
technologies is necessary. These technologies include many components that must be compatible and convergent to enable a truly flexible display. The necessary technologies include robust flexible substrates, conducting transparent conducting oxides and /or conducting polymers, electro-optic materials, inorganic and organic electronics, and packaging technologies.2 In addition to these technologies, many processes must also be developed and optimized in conjunction with the materials development, such as roll-toroll manufacturing, and printing.
1.1 Flexible Substrates
The primary flexible substrate candidates are plastics and thin glass. Plastic substrates are inexpensive, roll-to roll processable and can be laminated to multi-layers,but they also impose limitations with respect to thermal processing and barrier performance. Companies are developing coatings for these substrates as well as new plastic substrates to compensate for these constraints. Thin glass substrates exhibit better thermal stability and have higher visual transparency than plastics, but cannot fully bend and are not compatible with roll to roll processing.The use of thin metal substrates is a complementary approach to the glass and plastic displays. Flexible metallic substrates provide excellent barrier properties, thermal and dimensional stability over a broad temperature range. In addition, they offer potential integration with backplane technology for active-matrix displays.
1.2 Encapsulation
Since flexible displays utilize polymer materials, a barrier layer is essential in protecting and enclosing the functional materials and layers from oxygen and water
degradation. Since organic materials tend to oxidize and hydrolyze, oxygen and water permeation through a flexible substrate is of particular importance flexible electronics. Although single-layer barrier layers do provide the packaged materials with some protection, it appears that multiple layers are necessary for organic light emitting diode applications for long-term stability.
1.3 Organic and Inorganic Conducting Layers
Indium tin oxide is the typical conducting layer used in display technology because of its excellent sheet resistance and optical clarity. However, the process temperature required for ITO on glass is incompatible with plastic substrates. Therefore lower temperature processes have to be developed for ITO in order for it to be considered for flexible display applications. When ITO is deposited on a polymeric substrate, it can crack under tensile strain and cause catastrophic failure. Conducting polymers are also being considered for flexible display applications. Although their sheet resistance and optical properties are not as attractive as ITO, they donhave exceptional mechanical properties and low process temperatures. As ITO and conducting polymer technology compete for the conducting substrate solution, there is a new conducting substrate technology based on nanotechnology. Flexible and transparent electrodes have been formed from carbon nanotube dispersions in the combination with wet coating processes and printing techniques.
1.4 Electro-optic Materials
The various types of electro-optic materials for flexible display fall into three categories – emissive, reflective, and transmissive. For emissive applications, small molecules and polymers are being used for OLED applications. In order to have a truly low power display, a reflection mode of operation will have to be implemented on flexible substrates. Polymer-dispersed liquid crystals, encapsulated electrophoretics, gyricon, and bichromic ball composites all operate in the reflective mode. For electronic book and paper applications, an efficient reflective mode display is crucial to eliminate the power consuming backlight.
1.5 Thin Film Transistor
For many electro-optic materials, such as OLEDs, polymer-dispersed liquid crystals, electrophoretics and Gyricon materials, an active matrix backplane will be required for high resolution. The success of TFTs for plastic substrates to date has been an enabler for flexible flat panel displays and constitutes a very vital component. Currently, poly and amorphous silicon are the standards for TFTs for flexible displays. However, organic thin film transistors on polymeric substrates are also being considered as a candidate for flexible, light weight and inexpensive switching device.
A TFT backplane may be deformed by internally produced forces. These include stresses built-in by film growth, by differential thermal expansion or contraction, and by the uptake or release of humidity. A backplane also may be deformed by an external force that bends it, shapes it conformally, or elastically stretches and relaxes it. We survey how mechanical stress may be applied to or develop in a TFT backplane.
1.6 Roll to Roll Processing
Flexible displays are amendable to a roll-to-roll manufacturing process which would be a revolutionary change from current batch process manufacturing. Roll to roll processing is where materials are processed and rolled back up. If roll-to-roll manufacturing technology matures for display processing, it promises to reduce capital equipment costs, reduce display part costs, significantly increase throughput, and it may potentially eliminate component supply chain issues if all processes are performed with roll-to-roll techniques. Although batch processing can still be employed to manufacture flexible flat panel displays, many researchers and technologists believe that roll-to-roll manufacturing will ultimately be implemented