With an increased focus on home health, wellness, and prevention, a new market has been born around smart devices for tracking several vital parameters.

Optical Integration Without Compromises

Lights could soon use the full color suite of perfectly efficient organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, that last tens of thousands of hours, thanks to an innovation from physicists and engineers at the University of Michigan.The U-M team’s new phosphorescent OLEDs, commonly referred to as PHOLEDs, can maintain 90% of the blue light intensity for 10-14 times longer than other designs that emit similar deep blue colors. That kind of lifespan could finally make blue PHOLEDs hardy enough to be commercially viable in lights that meet the Department of Energy’s 50,000-hour lifetime target. Without a stable blue PHOLED, OLED lights need to use less-efficient technology to create white light.The lifetime of the new blue PHOLEDs currently is only long enough to use as lighting, but the same design principle could be combined with other light-emitting materials to create blue PHOLEDs hardy enough for TVs, phone screens and computer monitors. Display screens with blue PHOLEDs could potentially increase a device’s battery life by 30%.“Achieving long-lived blue PHOLEDs has been a focus of the display and lighting industries for over 20 years. It is probably the most important and urgent challenge facing the field of organic electronics,” said <a href="https://eecs.engin.umich.edu/people/forrest-stephen-r/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stephen Forrest</a>, the Peter A. Franken Distinguished University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Michigan. He is also the corresponding author of the study published today in Nature.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1703720458568-Haonan-and-Claire-lab-1-1.jpg" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Haonan Zhao and Claire Arneson, two doctoral students in physics and graduate student research assistants in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Michigan, fabricate their blue PHOLED devices in the lab. Their design prevents the excited molecules within the PHOLEDs light-emitting material from colliding, which could break the bonds holding the molecules together. Photo credit: Miranda Felty, University of MichiganPHOLEDs have nearly 100% internal quantum efficiency, meaning all of the electricity entering the device is used to create light. As a result, lights and display screens equipped with PHOLEDs can run brighter colors for longer periods of time with less power and carbon emissions.Before the U-M team’s research, the best blue PHOLEDs weren’t durable enough to be used in either lighting or displays. Only red and green PHOLEDs are stable enough to use in devices today, but blue is needed to complete the trio of colors in OLED “RGB” displays and white OLED lights. Red, green and blue light can be combined at different relative brightness to produce any color desired in display pixels and light panels.So far, the workaround in OLED displays has been to use older, fluorescent OLEDs to produce the blue colors, but the internal quantum efficiency of that technology is much lower. <a href="https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2023/tc/d3tc00245d" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Only a quarter</a> of the electric current entering the fluorescent blue device produces light.“A lot of the display industry’s solutions are upgrades to fluorescent OLEDs, which is still an alternative solution,” said study first author Haonan Zhao, a doctoral student in physics and electrical and computer engineering. “I think a lot of companies would prefer to use blue PHOLEDs, if they had the choice.”To make blue light, electricity excites heavy metal-containing phosphorescent organic molecules. Sometimes, the excited molecules come into contact before emitting the light, transferring all of the pair’s stored energy into one molecule. Because the energy of blue light is so high, the transferred energy, which is double that of the single excited molecule, can break chemical bonds and degrade the organic material.One way around this problem is to use materials that emit a broader spectrum of colors, which lowers the total amount of energy in the excited states. But such materials appear cyan or even green, rather than a deep blue.The U-M team got around this issue by sandwiching cyan material between two mirrors. By perfectly tuning the space between the mirrors, only the deepest blue light waves can persist and eventually emit from the mirror chamber.Further tuning the optical properties of the organic, light-emitting layer to an adjacent metal electrode introduced a new quantum mechanical state called a plasmon-exciton-polariton, or PEP. This new state allows the organic material to emit light very fast, thus further decreasing the opportunity for excited states to collide and destroy the light-emitting material.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1703720495886-Haonan-and-Claire-lab-2-1.jpg" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The research team constructs their blue PHOLEDs inside a glovebox that keeps the PHOLEDs away from oxygen and water before they are fully encased in nitrogen. It’s a standard procedure that protects the device’s sensitive optics and electronics. Photo credit: Miranda Felty, University of Michigan“In our device, the PEP is introduced because the excited states in the electron transporting material are synchronized with the light waves and the electron vibrations in the metal cathode,” said study co-author Claire Arneson, a doctoral student in physics and electrical and computer engineering.

Lights could soon use the full color suite of perfectly efficient organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, that last tens of thousands of hours, thanks to an innovation from physicists and engineers at the University of Michigan.

Blue PHOLEDs: Final color of efficient OLEDs finally viable in lighting

Although &ldquo;fixed position lighting&rdquo; was recorded in Beijing as far back as 500 B.C., and London and Amsterdam introduced public street lighting in the 16th Century, Paris set the example of widespread street lighting. First, King of France, Louis XV, introduced oil lamps into the city in the mid 18th Century; then mass gas lighting was introduced in 1818 followed by electric lighting in 1878[1]. Since then, public street lighting has become an essential infrastructure for every city.Back when the Parisian utility engineers were doing their work, the job of the streetlight was to make navigating dark city roads safer and more convenient. Today streetlights still perform that vital task, but in addition, city authorities are looking to maximize the potential of this ubiquitous piece of street furniture by using it as a keystone of the smart city. By adding connectivity and computing power to widespread existing infrastructure, streetlights can become intelligent and do much more than just light the way.<h2>The benefits of smart poles</h2>Smart lighting company Signify reports that replacing conventional street lighting with energy-efficient LEDs is an effective way to reduce energy consumption and associated emissions. Just by switching conventional public lights to LEDs yields a 50 percent reduction in energy consumption. But when those same lights incorporate connectivity allied to automatic dimming and presence detection, the energy savings can by upwards of 90 percent.So-called smart poles can optimize their own power consumption and provide feedback on the operational status of the LED array producing the illumination. But more than that, smart poles also provide a platform for a suite of sensors with edge processing capabilities. Each streetlight has the potential to include sidewalk surveillance and traffic cameras, air quality monitoring, weather monitoring, flood detection, information displays, contact with the emergency services, public announcements, and even Wi-Fi hotspots and electric vehicle (EV) charging.<h2>State of the market</h2>Already valued by Grand View Research at $8.90 billion in 2022, the smart pole market is expected to experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.8 percent from 2023 to 2030. By that year, there are anticipated to be more than 10.8 million smart poles across the globe, says analyst ABI research.Ambitious smart pole programs are underway in China, Korea, and India among other Asian countries. China&rsquo;s smart pole market, for example, was already valued at $17 billion by the end of 2020, according to the China Daily&nbsp;newspaper. In Europe, the EU&rsquo;s Humble Lamppost Project also aims to upgrade 10 million lampposts across EU conurbations to &ldquo;kickstart&rdquo; smart cities. The political body estimates that up to 50 percent of a city&rsquo;s energy bill is made up of street lighting costs, and that up to &euro;1.9 billion ($2.07 billion) could be saved through the move to LED lighting across Europe.In the U.S., a &ldquo;digital transformation project&rdquo; was announced in 2021 by the City of Hampton in Virginia, which will involve replacing street lighting with solar powered poles. These poles will offer charging ports and Wi-Fi access and will be equipped with security cameras.And several major brands are getting involved with smart poles &ndash; some key vendors of relevant technology include Verizon, Huawei, and Nokia (according to ABI research).<h2>Using sensors to make cities smarter</h2>There are several factors contributing to this booming market. The most important is the energy savings the smart poles bring that not only cut carbon emissions but also save a city&rsquo;s citizens money.Smart poles can analyze natural lighting trends using light sensors, to provide necessary illumination but without wasting electricity. For instance, throughout the summer the sun will rise earlier and set later, meaning that streetlights only need to be on for shorter periods. With automatic light detection the poles can adjust to these changes. Yet on overcast days, or in areas that experience more shade, the lights can compensate for the lower lights levels and increase safety by coming on earlier and staying for longer, even within regular &ldquo;daylight&rdquo; hours.Elsewhere, smart poles can enable predictive maintenance. The connectivity allows for fast and frequent reporting of the overall health of the LED lighting&mdash;such as its illumination output and energy consumption&mdash;and the information can be used to predict failure ahead of it happening. Maintenance crews can then be dispatched to replace the LEDs. In addition to bringing cost benefits, predictive maintenance improves safety because it ensures areas of the city aren&rsquo;t plunged into darkness.And as traffic congestion in many major cities grows worse, monitoring air pollution becomes more important. Smart poles can use sensors to monitor the carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and sulphur dioxide (SO2) that&rsquo;s emitted from vehicle exhausts. Then, policymakers can be made aware of the times and regions that are regularly plagued with poor air quality and introduce initiatives to reduce the problem.As street lighting originally had the purpose of increasing the safety of the general population, it&rsquo;s only appropriate that smart poles continue to enhance public wellbeing. By including more security cameras and monitoring street traffic, smart poles can help protect individuals. For example, using an audio sensor, smart poles can even detect significant events like the sound of a gunshot and then notify law enforcement.<h2>Data processing</h2>Modern connectivity solutions such as Nordic nRF91 Series SiPs, LTE-M/NB-IoT <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-cellular-IoT" rel="noopener" target="_blank">cellular IoT</a> and <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/DECT-NR?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">DECT NR+</a> products, are equipped with powerful microprocessors, ample memory, and machine learning (ML) algorithms that allow sensor information to be analyzed locally. Then, only notable information is forwarded to the Cloud. By only transmitting when necessary, cellular IoT devices can reduce power consumption and save on data charges.For instance, smart poles may detect no foot traffic on a sidewalk for long periods during the night and will therefore not send any data. However, if there is suddenly evidence of several people running quickly down the road at an unusual hour, this data can be transmitted to the authorities for investigation. Or perhaps the smart pole detects no unusual noises until a vehicle loses control on a slippery surface and hits a wall. Such an event would be worth reporting among an otherwise unchanging stream of data.<h2>The power of wireless in smart cities</h2>Cellular IoT connectivity is an ideal technology for connecting smart poles. For instance, even though streetlights are connected to mains power, the nRF9160 SiP can run from small batteries for long periods, making it easier and more convenient to retrofit connectivity to legacy installations. Cellular IoT also offers the convenience of &ldquo;plug-and-play&rdquo; connectivity, kilometer plus range, and reliable service. And the near-ubiquity, maturity, and security of cellular infrastructure (especially in major cities where smart poles are often deployed) makes cellular IoT a compelling option.By combining cellular IoT and standard protocols such as LwM2M (Lightweight Machine-to-Machine - which is included in Nordic&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-software/nRF-Connect-SDK?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nRF Connect SDK</a>), smart cities can leverage a fully standardized IPv6 end-to-end solution for smart cities.Widespread cellular infrastructure also opens up the opportunity to introduce the benefits of smart poles beyond the city into towns and smaller settlements so that a greater portion of the population can benefit from this technology. Combining with Bluetooth LE, each pole becomes a gateway, to which low power Bluetooth LE sensors can be connected.In addition to cellular IoT, DECT NR+ will play an important role in street lighting applications. For high density areas or regions without cellular coverage, or whenever smart cities do not want to rely on a mobile network operator (MNO), it is now possible to use the Nordic <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/nRF9161" rel="noopener" target="_blank">nRF9161</a> to implement private 5G networks to interconnect street poles, and then provide a connection to the Cloud using gateways.Streetlighting has been a fundamental part of our city for hundreds of years, keeping us safe and making life easier. By adding connectivity, whether NB-IoT/LTE-M/DECT NR+/Bluetooth LE, this established infrastructure can now do so much more for a city&rsquo;s population while at the same time helping us address the challenges of climate change by cutting carbon emissions.Reference:<a href="https://bonjourparis.com/lifestyle/how-louis-xiv-switched-on-the-city-of-light/" target="_blank">&nbsp;https://bonjourparis.com/lifestyle/how-louis-xiv-switched-on-the-city-of-light/</a><hr>This article was first published on Nordic&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" id="isPasted"></a><a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Get Connected Blog</a>. &nbsp;

Smart lighting company Signify reports that replacing conventional street lighting with energy-efficient LEDs is an effective way to reduce energy consumption and associated emissions.

How 'smart poles' can save energy and enhance smart cities of the future

In the dynamic landscape of retail stores, bars, clubs, and seasonal markets, the need for effective product visibility becomes even more evident. Illumination technologies are amongst the highly effective means for brand distinction and impactful visual communication. 

Introducing SaralOLED Label Ink set: A paradigm shift in OLED illuminated labels industry

Lighting is as essential to civilized society as clear air and clean water. In the absence of sunlight, artificial light allows us to carry on doing everything we&rsquo;d do during the day - even things like motor racing, skiing, and golf. But not without some impact.&nbsp;The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated lighting in the country consumed 211 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2021. That&#39;s about five percent of America&rsquo;s total electricity generation. The percentages are similar across the developed and developing world.Generating that much electricity, even with an ever-increasing proportion of renewable power (from wind, solar and hydroelectric sources), results in a significant ecological footprint. Lighting accounts for 5 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). That&rsquo;s around 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).But it used to be much worse. The glowing filament of traditional incandescent bulbs turned only around five percent of the electrical energy powering them into light. That meant a lot of electricity had to be generated, only to be wasted as heat, to provide sufficient illumination for people to go about their business. Now things are changing thanks to semiconductors: both in the form of solid-state <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Applications/LED-Lighting?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">LED lighting</a> and through the power-efficient intelligence of <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Bluetooth-Low-Energy/What-is-Bluetooth-Low-Energy?lang=en#infotabs?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bluetooth Low Energy</a> (Bluetooth LE) SoCs.<h2>Replacing bulbs with semiconductors</h2>LEDs generate light through the physical phenomenon of electroluminescence. Electroluminescence is generated by applying a voltage across a p-n semiconductor junction because electrons recombine with electron &ldquo;holes&rdquo; in the semiconductor and emit photons in the process. So-called white light LEDs were first commercialized by Japanese company Nichia in 1996, and market forces have resulted in ever-improving efficiency.Today, LEDs use about 15 percent of the energy of an incandescent bulb to generate the same amount of light and last up to 30 times longer. LEDs also push out the relatively efficient &ldquo;energy-saving&rdquo; compact fluorescent lights that once enjoyed the largest market share.<h2>Wireless SoCs make LEDs smart&hellip;</h2>Analyst Statista says that by 2020, over 50 percent of the global lighting market was served by LEDs, heading for 75 percent by 2025 and nearly 90 percent by 2030. While adoption is already significantly impacting carbon emissions, the U.S. DOE says a wholesale shift to LEDs could reduce CO2e emissions by 800 million tonnes per year, the equivalent of shutting down 684 coal-fired power stations. That&#39;s a big step towards sustainability.But even better efficiency can be gained by making LEDs smart through wireless connectivity. Connectivity allows automation of actions such as dimming lights when external conditions are brighter or cutting illumination when people leave the room. The savings are even better when the wireless controllers are themselves optimized for the lowest power consumption.<h2>&hellip;and more efficient</h2><a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2023/01/Nordic-powered-Acuity-Brands-smart-lighting-saves-over-two-million-tons-of-CO2-emissions-since-2016?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">This is why U.S. smart lighting and building solutions company, Acuity Brands, chose Nordic&#39;s Bluetooth LE SoCs for its smart lighting controllers.</a> The company estimates that pairing Nordic&#39;s ultra-low power technology with solid-state lighting has saved over 2.3 million tonnes of CO2e emissions from six million of its smart lighting deployments in the five years from 2016 to 2021. The CO2e emission reduction is based on a calculation of lower fossil fuel-generated energy consumption of the new Acuity lights compared with the energy consumption of the previous lighting solutions.Acuity says the Nordic <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Bluetooth-Low-Energy?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bluetooth LE SoCs</a> played a critical role in reducing the power consumption of its smart luminaire lighting fixtures by 40 watts while they&rsquo;re in use. &ldquo;Sustainability requires every single joule of energy to be conserved &hellip;and Nordic wrote the book on energy-efficient short-range wireless chips. The [company&rsquo;s] SoCs allowed us to maximize [carbon] savings,&rdquo; said Adam Handler, Director of Corporate Sustainability at Acuity Brands.<h2>The next step for intelligent light</h2>Smart lights can do more than save energy. Connected lighting forming a wireless mesh network can become a building-wide grid gathering a lot of data which in turn can inform smart decisions. For example, building managers can use the information to lower operating costs, decrease maintenance, and even support advanced services such as asset tracking and indoor navigation.Szymon Slupik, CTO and founder of lighting control company and <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2017/05/Nordic-powered-Bluetooth-low-energy-compatible?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nordic customer, Silvair,</a> told the Bluetooth SIG that the value of additional services enabled by smart lighting is seven to ten times more valuable than the lighting controls and energy savings themselves.We, humans, want to do many things after the sun goes down and artificial light allows that to happen. Connected, high-efficiency LEDs not only mean we can do so more sustainably but also gain new benefits that go far beyond just illumination.<hr>This article was first published on Nordic&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" id="isPasted"></a><a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Get Connected Blog</a>. &nbsp;

Lighting is as essential to civilized society as clear air and clean water. In the absence of sunlight, artificial light allows us to carry on doing everything we’d do during the day - even things like motor racing, skiing, and golf. But not without some impact.

Smart lights bring cuts to carbon emissions

Researchers have developed new technology that could usher in the &quot;next-generation&quot; of thinner, higher-resolution and more energy efficient screens and electronic devices. The international team from Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom, The Australian National University (ANU) and UNSW Canberra has&nbsp;created nanoparticles called &quot;metasurfaces&quot; that perform better than current displays like LCDs and LEDs. LCDs and LEDs rely on liquid crystal cells to create a display on TVs and other screens. The research team&#39;s metasurfaces are 100 times thinner than liquid crystal cells, offer a tenfold greater resolution and consume 50 per cent less energy. The researchers believe their technology is compatible with modern electronic displays. &quot;We have paved the way to break a technology barrier by replacing the liquid crystal layer in current displays with a metasurface, enabling us to make affordable flat screens liquid crystal-free,&quot; lead researcher Mohsen Rahmani, Professor of Engineering at Nottingham Trent University, said. &quot;The most important metrics of flat panel displays are pixel size and resolution, weight and power consumption. We have addressed each of these with our meta-display concept. &quot;Most importantly, our new technology can lead to a huge reduction of energy consumption - this is excellent news given the number of monitors and TV sets being used in households and businesses every single day. We believe it is time for LCD and LED displays to be phased out in the same way as former cathode ray tube (CRT) TVs over the past ten to 20 years.&quot; Dragomir Neshev, Director of the ARC Centre for Excellence in Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS) and ANU Professor in Physics, said: &quot;The capability of conventional displays has reached its peak and is unlikely to significantly improve in the future due to multiple limitations. &quot;Today there is a quest for fully solid-state flat display technology with a high-resolution and fast refresh rate. We have designed and developed metasurface pixels that can be ideal for the next-generation display. &quot;Unlike liquid crystals, our pixels do not require polarised lights for functioning, which will halve screens&#39; energy consumption.&quot; Khosro Zangeneh Kamali, a PhD scholar at ANU and the first author of the study, said: &quot;Metasurfaces are proven to exhibit extraordinary optical behaviour. &quot;However, inventing an effective way to control them is still a subject of heavy research. We have proposed electrically programmable silicon metasurfaces, which is a versatile platform for programmable metasurfaces.&quot;&nbsp; Dr Lei Xu, a team member from Nottingham Trent University, said: &quot;There is significant room for further improvements by employing artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to design and realise even smaller, thinner and more efficient metasurface displays.&quot; Professor Andrey Miroshnichenko, a team member from UNSW Canberra, said: &quot;Our pixels are made of silicon, which offers a long lifespan in contrast with organic materials required for other existing alternatives. Moreover, silicon is widely available, CMOS compatible with mature technology, and cheap to produce.&quot; Professor Miroshnichenko said the team hoped their development could generate a frontier technology in new flat displays with a global market value of about $117 billion in 2020. The work is reported in the journal&nbsp;<a href="https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fanu.us2.list-manage.com%2Ftrack%2Fclick%3Fu%3D73b3c4bf45063d7aa04d62036%26id%3D7b14896d75%26e%3Da3d1be9eda&data=05%7C01%7Cjames.giggacher%40anu.edu.au%7C3aa53e73db6f43b787c308db15138a89%7Ce37d725cab5c46249ae5f0533e486437%7C0%7C0%7C638126945905851498%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=1XgS6ghU7I9hrvV%2BPDdflpeNRGWeOEOf4kRtvlLVivo%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">Light: Science &amp; Applications</a>. &nbsp;

PhD scholar Khosro Zangeneh. Photo: Jamie Kidston/ANU

Researchers have developed new technology that could usher in the "next-generation" of thinner, higher-resolution and more energy efficient screens and electronic devices.

New tech could create cheaper and thinner flat screens

Building on their groundbreaking work for <a href="file:///Users/cmsj/Downloads/for%20any%20display%20or%20VR%20application.%2010:42:28%20You%20need%20to%20have%203%20colors,%20red,%20green,%20and%20blue,%20so%20so%20very%20important%20to%20have%20them,%20and%20also%20very%20important%20to%20have%20a%20stable%20emission.%2010:42:39%20So%20that,%20you%20know,%20when%20your%20display%20becomes%20brighter.%2010:42:42%20You%20have%20seen%20the%20same%20color%20right%3f%20if%20it's%20not%20stable%20when%20you%20increase%20the%20brightness,%20then%20the%20green%20becomes%20the%20bluish,%20red%20of%20it%20becomes%20greenish,%20so%20it's%20not%20a%20high%20quality%20display.%2010:42:57%20And%20so%20what's%20really%20important%20here%20is%20a%20way%20to%20make%20them%20very,%20very%20stable%20for%20such%20a%20small%20size%20LEDs,%20and%20be%20able%20to%20grow%20them%20directly%20on%20the%20silicon%20wave,%20which%20is%20really%20really%20important%20for%20the%20future%20manufacturing%2010:43:10%20integration%20process" target="_blank">highly-efficient red micro light emitting diodes (LEDs),&nbsp;</a>Prof. Zetian Mi&rsquo;s research team have now achieved a new approach for the design, fabrication, and integration of high-performance green micro-LEDs on silicon. These highly stable micro-LEDs are important for a broad range of applications in on-chip optical communication, including emerging augmented reality/mixed reality devices, and ultrahigh-resolution full-color displays.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very important to have a stable emission of all three colors &ndash; red, green, and blue &ndash; to achieve a high-quality display,&rdquo; Mi said. &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s especially important to grow these small, stable LEDs directly on the silicon wafer for the future manufacturing and integration process.&rdquo;LEDs, which are typically stacks of semiconductor thin films, have already revolutionized the lighting and display world. They are far superior in efficiency, stability, and device volume compared to traditional devices, such as incandescent light bulbs and cathode tubes.However, LEDs have many limitations when it comes to supporting virtual and augmented reality, as well as other emerging optoelectronic applications. These new applications demand micrometer or smaller LEDs that are highly stable, highly efficient, have ultralow power consumption, and can support full-color emission and brightness. In other words, they need to be one million times smaller than conventional broad area devices without sacrificing their quality.Mi&rsquo;s team recently succeeded in creating red micro-LEDs that are nearly three orders of magnitude smaller in surface area than previously reported devices while exhibiting external quantum efficiency of ~1.2%, but green micro-LEDs come with their own challenges.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1666235664577-pandey-malhotra-1024x332.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Mi&rsquo;s red micro-LED research: (L) Postdoctoral researcher Ayush Pandey helped plan the parameters of the nanowires for growth in the MBE system, and then fabricated the actual LEDs in the Lurie Nanofabrication Facility. (R) ECE doctoral student Yakshita Malhotra helped plan the parameters and then grow the nanowire crystals using the MBE system in Prof. Mi&rsquo;s lab.&nbsp;&ldquo;You can make very efficient large-area blue LEDs and large area red LEDs, but it is extremely difficult to make very efficient large area green LEDs. This is called the &lsquo;Green Gap,&rsquo;&rdquo; Mi said. &ldquo;But shrinking a device&rsquo;s dimension to about one micrometer is extremely challenging whether it&rsquo;s green or red.&rdquo;In addition, it&rsquo;s important for these micro- and submicron-LEDs to be grown on silicon, instead of the traditional sapphire wafer. Silicon wafers improve the manufacturing process, allow for improved scalability and integration with small electronics, and are more cost-efficient. Specifically, they&rsquo;re more suitable for integration with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) electronics, which would pave the way for much more powerful photonic circuits. But using silicon also creates a mismatch in the lattice parameter, for the crystal structure is different.To address these challenges, Mi&rsquo;s team developed III-nitride submicron-scale green micro-LEDs using arrays of nanowires, each of which is only 100-200 nm in diameter and tens of nanometers apart.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1666235687610-GreenLED-content.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Yixin Xiao, center, a PhD student, and Yuanpeng Wu, a postdoctoral research fellow, both in ECE, and members of Professor Zetian Mi&rsquo;s research group, working in the molecular beam epitaxy lab in the EECS Building on the North Campus of the University of Michigan. In the lab they are growing Indium gallium nitride (InGaN) nanowire micro-LEDs using molecular beam epitaxy. Photo: Brenda Ahearn/College of Engineering&nbsp;&ldquo;We use the nanowire structure to filter out the threading dislocations caused by lattice mismatch between the nitride materials and the silicon substrate,&rdquo; said Yuanpeng Wu, a postdoc in Mi&rsquo;s group and first author on the paper.The result is the first high-performance, highly stable green micro-LEDs grown on silicon. They plan to apply the same sort of process for blue micro-LEDs.&ldquo;The approach we developed for green readily applies to blue,&rdquo; Mi said. &ldquo;The next step is integrating directly on the silicon wafer without transferring, which would be a huge improvement for manufacturing.&rdquo;With red, green, and blue micro-LEDs, the future of next-generation display technology begins.The research is detailed in&nbsp;<a href="https://trebuchet.public.springernature.app/get_content/f868891b-9374-4648-bd01-13235847ca08" target="_blank">&ldquo;InGaN micro-light-emitting diodes monolithically grown on Si: achieving ultra-stable operation through polarization and strain engineering&rdquo;</a> by Yuanpeng Wu, Yixin Xiao, Ishtiaque Navid, Kai Sun, Yakshita Malhotra, Ping Wang, Ding Wang, Yuanxiang Xu, Ayush Pandey, Maddaka Reddeppa, Walter Shin, Jiangnan Liu, Jungwook Min, and Zetian Mi,&nbsp;Light Science &amp; Application,&nbsp;October 2022.Fabrication work was accomplished in the&nbsp;<a href="https://lnf.umich.edu/" target="_blank">Lurie Nanofabrication Facility,</a> and technical support was provided by the&nbsp;<a href="https://mc2.engin.umich.edu/" target="_blank">Michigan Center for Materials Characterization</a>.Some intellectual property related to GaN-based nanowires was licensed to NS Nanotech Inc., which was co-founded by Mi. The University of Michigan and Mi have a financial interest in NS Nanotech, Inc.

Yuanpeng Wu, right, a postdoctoral research fellow, and Yixin Xiao, a PhD student, both in ECE, and members of Professor Zetian Mi’s research group, working in the molecular beam epitaxy lab in the EECS Building on the North Campus of the University of Michigan. In the lab they are growing Indium gallium nitride (InGaN) nanowire micro-LEDs using molecular beam epitaxy. Photo: Brenda Ahearn/College of Engineering

Prof. Zetian Mi’s team are the first to achieve high-performance, highly stable green micro-LEDs with dimensions less than 1 micrometer on silicon, which can support ultrahigh-resolution full-color displays and other applications.

Breakthrough in green micro-LEDs for augmented-mixed reality devices

The first slide shows the battery gap- Ahmed has collected data by year showing that power demand of phones far exceeds the power supply level of batteries, creating a &quot;battery gap&quot; which widens each year as more power-hungry features are added whilst battery technologies imporves only incrementally. Some 70% of power consumption of a mobile phone or tablet is by the display, showing its outsize importance in shrinking this gap. The second slide shows the improvements in the efficiency (lm/W) of &#39;released&#39; OLED devices per year. The OLED efficiency has clearly plateaued in produced or released products. The backdot represents the projected potential of microLEDs, showing how the microLED technology can be a game changer. The third slide shows that there is a gap between EQE of laboratory OLEDs and that of released products. The origins are not clear but likely involve trade-offs neccessary in production and trade-offs between lifetime stability and EQE. The four side compares the efficiency of GaNw LEDs at various wavelenghts vs organic LEDs (from previous slides). It shows that GaN LEDs offer dramatically higher EQE levels compared to OLEDs at all wavelenghts except red. Indeed, there is a red efficiency gap in GaN microLED technology, the filling of which is the subject of intense global R&amp;D This charts clearly demonstrate that while OLED technology seems to have plateaued and thus will not likely ever overcome the Battery Gap, the emerging microLED technology offers high promise to do us. Of course development and manufacturing of microLEDs involves other challenges such as rapid transfer as well as high-yield production which we will disucss elsewhere To learn more about microLED technologies, join the world&#39;s first ever specialist technology on the topic. Check out the world-class agenda at www.TechBlick.com/microLEDs <a data-attribute-index="2" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=microled&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6966071204499619841" target="_blank">#microled</a> <a data-attribute-index="3" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=miniled&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6966071204499619841" target="_blank">#miniled</a> <a data-attribute-index="4" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=qd&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6966071204499619841" target="_blank">#qd</a> <a data-attribute-index="5" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=quantumdot&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6966071204499619841" target="_blank">#quantumdot</a> <a data-attribute-index="6" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=displaytechnology&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6966071204499619841" target="_blank">#displaytechnology</a> <a data-attribute-index="7" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=displays&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6966071204499619841" target="_blank">#displays</a> <a data-attribute-index="8" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=oled&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6966071204499619841" target="_blank">#oled</a> <a data-attribute-index="9" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=gan&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6966071204499619841" target="_blank">#GaN</a> <a data-attribute-index="10" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=led&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6966071204499619841" target="_blank">#led</a>&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1662557033458-1.png" style="width: 687px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1662557044006-2.png" style="width: 690px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1662557052709-3.png" style="width: 658px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1662557064178-4.png" style="width: 729px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1662557072042-5.png" style="width: 715px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">

Why can microLED technology can help narrow the energy gap in electronic devices? The first slide shows the battery gap- Ahmed (Intel) has collected data by year showing that power demand of phones far exceeds the power supply level of batteries, creating a "battery gap" which ...

Why can microLED technology help narrow the energy gap in electronic devices?

Turning previously &lsquo;dumb&rsquo; LED streetlighting &lsquo;smart&rsquo; is one of the easiest cost-to-benefit propositions in smart city because it effectively pays for itself. And this is especially true with the advent of cellular IoT technology because it means the supporting infrastructure needed is already in place.The ubiquity and robustness of LED street lighting posts also provide an ideal physical platform upon which to build any other smart city capabilities.<h2>Smart pays with cellular IoT</h2>According to the UN&rsquo;s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), seven in ten people will live in a city by 2050 and that mass migration is well underway.It therefore should come as no surprise town and city authorities around the world are already under severe pressure to provide more or better services with less per capita money as city populations swell. And today that increasing pressure includes demonstrably improving their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance.That&rsquo;s a big ask. And why the smart city market is estimated to be on track to become a $7 billion sector by as soon as 2030.Thankfully, in the smart city arena, there is an obvious place to start saving on energy consumption and costs. And that is by making existing LED streetlighting smart.At the simplest level this involves making the streetlighting more responsive to actual local lighting conditions rather than switching on and off to a fixed schedule. On a bright, sunny day the lighting can stay off for much longer than, for example, on an overcast day.Or if pedestrian numbers or road traffic density is low, the lighting intensity or density may not need to be as high.<h2>Saving more than energy</h2>But the cost-saving potential of streetlighting reaches far further than minimizing energy consumption. Smart LED street lighting can also be continuously monitored. This opens up the capability of identifying and predicting streetlight faults.As a result, costly maintenance crews can be dispatched to work much more optimally by, for example, inspecting and repairing clusters of streetlights in one location. And because this reduces the number of kilometers they need to travel in their service vans, it also helps reduce pollution.Over time, the energy and maintenance cost savings of making LED streetlighting smart typically pays for the entire upgrade.<h2>The lightbulb moment</h2>But cost savings are not the only benefit of smart street lighting. Street lighting posts are located everywhere that humans go. They are physically robust (tall, weather-proof and secure), and they have a mains power supply in case battery power is not viable.This makes them an ideal platform for locating other smart city application sensors. Obvious examples include traffic optimization, air and noise pollution reduction, and pedestrian footfall monitoring.These smart city applications can potentially make towns and cities safer, greener, and more pleasant places to live.<h2>Accessing the benefits</h2>While the benefits of shifting to smart LED street lighting and smart city are becoming ever more clearly defined, the only downside is technological complexity.Most local town and city authorities are staffed by people who are not IoT or IT experts and don&#39;t want to be.Yet these are key decision-makers when it comes to street lighting and smart city. The easier smart city vendors make city staff lives, the easier it will be for them to decide to go down the smart city route.<h2>Urban Control</h2>One Nordic customer that completely understands this challenge is leading smart city device provider, Urban Control. The company has developed a retrofittable smart LED streetlighting luminaire controller that is said to be able to make any LED streetlight instantly smart with &#39;plug&amp;play&#39; simplicity. This includes using an industry-standard Zhaga LED lighting socket.In operation, the <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2022/03/Urban-Control-has-specified-nRF9160-SiP-in-city-streetlight-LED-luminaire-controllers?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Urban Node 324</a> leverages a Nordic <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/nRF9160?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nRF9160</a> multi-mode NB-IoT/LTE-M SiP to provide the cellular IoT communication that enables the controller to be remotely operated by any smart city Central Management System (CMS) based on the common &lsquo;TALQ&rsquo; smart city standard.By using cellular IoT, the controller can leverage existing global cellular network infrastructure &lsquo;out-of-the-box&rsquo; just like a smartphone, as well as scale cost-effectively from one streetlight up to millions. It also eliminates the need for non-technical town and city authorities to have to worry about building and managing a specialized wireless IoT network.<h2>Home run for cellular IoT</h2>There is another final benefit of <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-cellular-IoT?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">cellular IoT</a> wireless technology in smart city that is often overlooked but equally vital: it avoids any concerns about technological obsolescence.Change is a given in any technology industry, and the pace of change only ever seems to increase. Wireless IoT is no exception. And over the typical two, three or even four decade lifespan of an urban streetlight, no one expects to wake up one day and find there is no cellular wireless network functioning outside their door.Cellular IoT provides future-proofing that is second-to-none when it comes to wireless IoT. With it, all the scalability, quality-of-service, security and reliability benefits the world has come to expect from cellular and rely upon.<hr>This article was first published on Nordic&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" id="isPasted"></a><a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Get Connected Blog</a>. &nbsp;

Turning previously ‘dumb’ LED streetlighting ‘smart’ is one of the easiest cost-to-benefit propositions in smart city because it effectively pays for itself.

Smart street lighting and cellular IoT is the gateway to the smart city

In this episode, we talk about how performance limitations of current microchips are being addressed by utilizing novel materials like graphene and bioinspired designs to address the needs of next generation computing and electronics. As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/4c563405-4ade-4b6a-9070-a75a7d327eef?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe><hr>This podcast is sponsored by <a href="https://www2.mouser.com/" id="isPasted" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mouser Electronics</a>. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjU0MDAxNTk1MjgwLU1vdXNlci1zcG9uc29yLTEtYS5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><hr>(3:46) - Graphene-hBN Computing(16:44) - Spiderweb MicrochipsEpisode 72 was brought to you by Mouser Electronics, Farbod &amp; Daniel’s favorite electronics distributor. Click <a href="https://www.mouser.com/applications/wide-bandgap-beyond-silicon/" target="_blank">here</a> to read the article discussing &nbsp;how scientists are looking beyond silicon for the future of computer chips.<hr>About the podcast:Every day, some of the most innovative universities, companies, and individual technology developers share their knowledge on Wevolver. To ensure we can also provide this knowledge for the growing group of podcast listeners, we started a collaboration with two young engineers, Daniel Scott Mitchell &amp; Farbod Moghaddam who discuss the most interesting content in this podcast series.&nbsp;To learn more about this show, please visit the <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published.Be sure to give us a follow and review on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apple</a> podcasts, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!Take a few seconds to leave us a review. It really helps! <a href="https://apple.co/2RIsbZ2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://apple.co/2RIsbZ2&nbsp;</a>if you do it and send us proof, we’ll give you a shoutout on the show.

In this episode, we talk about how performance limitations of current microchips are being addressed by utilizing novel materials like graphene and bioinspired designs to address the needs of next generation computing and electronics.

Podcast: Spiderweb Inspired & Graphene Enhanced Microchips

In this episode, we talk about how embedding information about products can change consumer insight regarding their purchases and the best way to make high quality, affordable, and flexible OLED screens. As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/5141d285-e7f7-4062-83fb-4e9e29407a6d?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe><hr>This podcast is sponsored by <a href="https://www2.mouser.com/" id="isPasted" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mouser Electronics</a>.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1645532225239-Mouser-sponsor-1-a.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(2:22) - <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/invisible-machine-readable-labels-that-identify-and-track-objects" target="_blank">Invisible Machine Readable Labels</a>:(13:55) - <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/fully-3d-printed-flexbile-organic-led-display-hints-at-a-future-of-desktop-manufacturing" target="_blank">3D Printed Flexible OLED</a>:Episode 58 was brought to you by Mouser Electronics, Farbod &amp; Daniel’s favorite electronics distributor. Click <a href="https://www.mouser.com/news/methods/2021-3/mouser-methods-v4i3.html#p=1" target="_blank">here&nbsp;</a>to read the magazine discussing immersive technologies.<hr>About the podcast:Every day, some of the most innovative universities, companies, and individual technology developers share their knowledge on Wevolver. To ensure we can also provide this knowledge for the growing group of podcast listeners, we started a collaboration with two young engineers, Daniel Scott Mitchell &amp; Farbod Moghaddam who discuss the most interesting content in this podcast series.&nbsp;To learn more about this show, please visit the <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published.Be sure to give us a follow and review on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apple</a> podcasts, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!

Offering a high refresh rate and surviving multiple bends, this fully-printed display surprised its creators.

In this episode, we talk about how embedding information about products can change consumer insight regarding their purchases and the best way to make high quality, affordable, and flexible OLED screens

Podcast: Metadata Embedded Hardware & Flexible OLED Screens

This article was discussed in our <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte&source=gmail&ust=1645483330039000&usg=AOvVaw3G1InVzNPFrh6EQN0Bd-pi" href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" id="isPasted" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Next Byte podcast</a>.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/5141d285-e7f7-4062-83fb-4e9e29407a6d?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe>The full article will continue below.<hr>3D printing is revolutionizing the fields of prototyping and manufacturing, scaling from hyper-local customized one-off creations to mass-produced buildings and more. The next logical step: To be able to print active electronics, creating complex devices in a single stage — something engineers from the University of Minnesota, some now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, and the Pusan National University, claim to have achieved.In their paper published in <cite>Science Advances</cite>, the team has showcased an approach for manufacturing a functional display based on an 8×8 matrix of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) — without the need to perform any kind of manufacturing beyond two forms of 3D printing, both achievable using a customized table-top 3D printer.<h1>Printed electronics</h1>Printing solid objects and simple mechanical devices is a largely-solved problem, but making a 3D printer spit out functional electronics is considerably more challenging. Many approaches rely on partial 3D printing followed by the integration of electronics made in a more traditional manner, or limit the complexity of the components they can create.The display printed at the University of Minnesota, by contrast, is a surprisingly complex creation — and one the manufacture of which is typically restricted to clean-room environments and specialized equipment.“OLED displays are usually produced in big, expensive, ultra-clean fabrication facilities,” Michael McAlpine, professor and senior author of the work, explains. “We wanted to see if we could basically condense all of that down and print an OLED display on our table-top 3D printer, which was custom built and costs about the same as a Tesla Model S.”<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k7KV_lOIp8o?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe> While it’s true that a 3D printer as expensive as a Tesla Model S — just shy of $100,000 for the base trim at the time of writing — isn’t something most people will have in their office or garage, it’s considerably cheaper than the manufacturing facilities typically required for an OLED display panel.The printer, described by the team as a “‘one-pot’ 3D printing platform,” works through the combination of multiple processing approaches: Material extrusion, spraying, and mechanical reconfiguration — and all without ever requiring anything beyond the printer itself, small enough to sit atop a desk, and a day-long treatment in a vacuum desiccator to cure its functional inks.<h1>A successful display</h1>“I thought I would get something, but maybe not a fully working display,” says Ruitao Su, first author of the paper, of the device his team created. “But then it turns out all the pixels were working, and I can display the text I designed. My first reaction was ‘it is real!’ I was not able to sleep, the whole night.”While the display itself is rudimentary — an 8×8 matrix totaling 64 OLED devices offering a variable brightness across a single color — it’s an important proof-of-concept which brings a surprising advantage to the table: It’s flexible, bending and springing back into shape in a way which would make it well-suited to use in wearables and other devices with non-planar geometries.“The device exhibited a relatively stable emission over the 2,000 bending cycles,” Su explains, “suggesting that fully 3D printed OLEDs can potentially be used for important applications in soft electronics and wearable devices.”<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1643744828316-3dprint2.jpg" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="A figure from a scientific paper, showing: the six layers of a 3D-printed OLED display; the printing nozzles used; its schmatic; and its light emittence.">The six-layer display is entirely 3D-printed using a single customized desktop printer. The display is built up of six layers 3D-printed on polyethylene tetraphthalate (PET) film: An interconnect layer printed with conductive inks containing silver nanoparticles; a thin-film array of a conductive polymer as the anode structure; a thin-film array of an electroluminescent polymer which gives the display its glow; a silicone-based insulation layer; a droplet layer which is reconfigured by the printer to form the cathode structure; and a top interconnect layer. Finally, the whole device is encapsulated using an extrusion-printed silicone mold.The reconfiguration step is of particular interest. Described by the team as “analogous to conventional metal forging,” the droplets are compressed using a polypropylene nozzle mounted to the 3D printer. After tuning the compression rate, dwell time, and depth, the team found a way to reconfigure the droplets such that they had a similar height but exhibited an increased contact area with the layer below — solving one of the key difficulties which had previously plagued 3D-printed electronics.<h1>Real-world potential</h1>The approach taken by the team shows considerable promise, in particular because even expensive 3D printers are cheaper than traditional factories. “Our printing methodology for both thin-film and metallization layers circumvented the need for photomask sets, cleanrooms, or complicated circuit layouts involved in conventional microelectronics fabrication,” the researchers note.Performance of the resulting display — for all its low resolution — proves the concept still further: In testing, the 3D-printed display offered a response time of 0.2ms — “on the same order of magnitude,” its creators write, “as inorganic aluminum gallium indium phosphide (AlGaInP) LEDs and one order of magnitude faster than typical LCDs.”The device’s robustness, too, impresses, offering “relatively stable [light] emission over 2,000 bending cycles,” and successfully displaying text and images even when bent nearly completely in half.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1643744842333-3dprint3.jpg" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="A figure from a scientific paper showing a 3D-printed OLED display and its performance while being bent in two directions. A smiley face is visible as the demonstration image shown on the display panel.">Printed onto a flexible substrate, the display is capable of operating while bent nearly double. It’s the manufacturing process that is the highlight of the work, though. “The ability to fabricate OLED displays entirely on 3D printing platforms represents a paradigm shift for the printing of optoelectronics,” the paper’s authors claim, “which will affect other types of active devices, such as image sensors, photovoltaics, and computation.”The team’s next step: Creating displays with improved resolution, improving the inks in use, and finding a way to integrated controlling circuits — including transistors and capacitors — to create a fully 3D-printed active-matrix display.The paper detailing the work is available under open-access terms in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abl8798" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><cite>Science Advances</cite></a>.<h1>Reference</h1>Ruitao Su, Sung Hyun Park, Xia Ouyang, Song Ih Ahn, Michael C. McAlpine: <cite>3D-printed flexible organic light-emitting diode displays</cite>, <cite>Science Advances Vol 8, Issue 1</cite>. DOI <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abl8798" target="_blank">10.1126/sciadv.abl8798</a>.

Using a modified 3D printer small enough to fit on a desk, a research team has successfully printed a fully-functional OLED display panel with impressive performance and flexibility.

Fully 3D-printed flexbile organic LED display hints at a future of desktop manufacturing

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