(Image: LG)
LG Display (Seoul, South Korea) has developed a 18-inch organic-LED (OLED) display so flexible that it can be rolled up. The display has a 1200 x 810 pixel resolution and can be rolled to a radius of 3 cm.
Rather than a conventional polymer, LG Display used a high-molecular-weight polyimide film as the backplane of the flexible panel; the thinner polyimide is what leads to the smaller bending radius.
LG also unveiled a partially transparent OLED panel with a transparency of 30%; in contrast, existing transparent LCD panels have a 10% transparency. To achieve this, LG engineers reduced the haze of the panel and downsized the area of the circuit components to 2% of the total area.
"We are confident that by 2017, we will successfully develop an ultra-HD flexible and transparent OLED panel of more than 60 inches, which will have transmittance of more than 40% and a curvature radius of 100R [100 mm], thereby leading the future display market," says In-Byung Kang, senior vice president and head of the R&D Center at LG Display.