Efficient and mechanically robust stretchable organic light-emitting devices by a laser-programmable buckling process.

Da Yin,Yong-Lai Zhang,Yan-Gang Bi,Jing Feng,Yue-Feng Liu,Hong-Bo Sun,Xu-Lin Zhang,Rui Ma,Qi-Dai Chen

doi:10.1038/ncomms11573

Abstract

Stretchable organic light-emitting devices are becoming increasingly important in the fast-growing fields of wearable displays, biomedical devices and health-monitoring technology. Although highly stretchable devices have been demonstrated, their luminous efficiency and mechanical stability remain impractical for the purposes of real-life applications. This is due to significant challenges arising from the high strain-induced limitations on the structure design of the device, the materials used and the difficulty of controlling the stretch-release process. Here we have developed a laser-programmable buckling process to overcome these obstacles and realize a highly stretchable organic light-emitting diode with unprecedented efficiency and mechanical robustness. The strained device luminous efficiency −70 cd A−1 under 70% strain - is the largest to date and the device can accommodate 100% strain while exhibiting only small fluctuations in performance over 15,000 stretch-release cycles. This work paves the way towards fully stretchable organic light-emitting diodes that can be used in wearable electronic devices.

Highlights

Stretchable organic light-emitting devices are becoming increasingly important in the fast-growing fields of wearable displays, biomedical devices and health-monitoring technology
The best performance ever reported for the fully stretchable organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) is from the intrinsically stretchable devices based on a polymer light-emitting electrochemical cell, in which the highest efficiency is 11.4 cd A À 1 at a peak brightness of 2,200 cd m À 2, and it could survive 1,000 stretch-release cycles[14]
The small molecule-based top-emitting OLEDs were deposited by thermal evaporation onto the ultrathin polymer film

Summary

Introduction

Stretchable organic light-emitting devices are becoming increasingly important in the fast-growing fields of wearable displays, biomedical devices and health-monitoring technology. Highly stretchable devices have been demonstrated, their luminous efficiency and mechanical stability remain impractical for the purposes of real-life applications This is due to significant challenges arising from the high strain-induced limitations on the structure design of the device, the materials used and the difficulty of controlling the stretch-release process. The need to avoid physical and electrical damage to the devices under large levels of strain imposes limits on the structural design, material selection and controllability of the stretch-release process[18,19,20] Simultaneous achievement of both mechanical robustness and high electroluminescent (EL) performance remains one of the most difficult challenges. The method can be applied to any monochromatic or white OLEDs with complex structure to achieve even higher efficiencies

Methods

Results

Conclusion