High-Resolution 3D Printing of Freeform, Transparent Displays in Ambient Air.

Hyeon Seok An,Young‐Geun Park,Jang‐Ung Park,Kukjoo Kim,Myoung Hoon Song,Yun Seok Nam

doi:10.1002/advs.201901603

Abstract

Direct 3D printing technologies to produce 3D optoelectronic architectures have been explored extensively over the last several years. Although commercially available 3D printing techniques are useful for many applications, their limits in printable materials, printing resolutions, or processing temperatures are significant challenges for structural optoelectronics in achieving fully 3D‐printed devices on 3D mechanical frames. Herein, the production of active optoelectronic devices with various form factors using a hybrid 3D printing process in ambient air is reported. This hybrid 3D printing system, which combines digital light processing for printing 3D mechanical architectures and a successive electrohydrodynamic jet for directly printing transparent pixels of organic light‐emitting diodes at room temperature, can create high‐resolution, transparent displays embedded inside arbitrarily shaped, 3D architectures in air. Also, the demonstration of a 3D‐printed, eyeglass‐type display for a wireless, augmented reality system is an example of another application. These results represent substantial progress in the development of next‐generation, freeform optoelectronics.

Highlights

Direct 3D printing technologies to produce 3D optoelectronic architectures have techniques.[1,2,3] these lithography-based processes require multiple been explored extensively over the last several years
The 3D e-jet printing method is used successively for direct printing of high-resolution organic light-emitting diode (OLED) pixels onto these digital light processing (DLP)-printed, 3D mechanical frames. This 3D e-jet can print diverse functional materials for optoelectronic devices with high resolutions, even on 3D architectures with diverse geometries, by adjusting the printing speed and position within a synchronized, five-axis stage movement. This hybrid 3D system can print all of the components of optoelectronic devices in series, from 3D mechanical frames to all OLED layers, including encapsulations, as a transparent, freeform 3D display
This hybrid 3D printing system can print all components of transparent OLEDs as well as 3D mechanical frames, which indicates that it can achieve multi-material integrations for embedding active optoelectronic devices inside 3D architectures that have arbitrary shapes

Summary

Introduction

Direct 3D printing technologies to produce 3D optoelectronic architectures have techniques.[1,2,3] these lithography-based processes require multiple been explored extensively over the last several years. This hybrid 3D system can print all of the components of optoelectronic devices in series, from 3D mechanical frames to all OLED layers, including encapsulations, as a transparent, freeform 3D display.

Results

Conclusion