The study from Sony and the Max Planck Institute, published in the New Journal of Physics, demonstrates the possibility of bendable, optically assessed, organic light emitting displays (OLED), based on red or IR-A light upconversion.

The research paper called Annihilation Assisted Upconversion: All-Organic, Flexible and Transparent Multicolour Display presents the promising Organic LED technology under a new light.

The screens, which are less than a millimetre thick, could herald a whole new generation of devices that are yet to be invented. From Head Up Displays umbrellas which broadcast news to T-shirts displaying live TV streams, possibilities are endless.

Although the first commercial models are still far, the first trials are promising and cold potentially allow laptops and smartphones to run much longer since these OLED screens consume a fraction of the power current displays do.

Screen display technology is taking a significant step forward as researchers from Sony and the Max Planck Institute demonstrate the possibility of bendable optically assessed organic light emitting displays for the first time, based on red or IR-A light upconversion.

The paper, ‘Annihilation Assisted Upconversion: All-Organic, Flexible and Transparent Multicolour Display’, makes feasible the design of computers that can be folded up and put in your pocket, the mass-production of moving image posters for display advertising, televisions which can be bended to view or, even, newspaper display technology which allows readers to upload daily news to an easy-to-carry display contraption.

All organic, upconversion multicolour displays have significant advantages when compared to the traditional technology used for projection displays and televisions. Namely UC displays are:

• All-organic transparent and flexible
• Ultra low excitation intensity (red or IR)– less than 15 mWcm-2
• Emissive display – no speckles
• Coherent or non-coherent excitation allowed
• High efficiency – at the moment ca. 6 %
• Fast response times – ca. 1 µs up to 500 µs on request (LCDs have ms)
• Almost unlimited viewing angle – up to the total internal reflection angle
• Tailoring of emitted colours realised even when using the same excitation source
• Multilayer Displays
• Size limited only by the size of the substrates

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