The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be a fundamental change in how people interact with electronic devices. Whether a cell phone or wearable fitness tracker, the form of current electronic devices is ultimately limited by the rectangular and rigid display. This project will develop highly transparent and elastic displays, achieving an order of magnitude improvement in mechanical elasticity when compared to state-of-the-art flexible displays. The increased flexibility will result in a transformative technology, enabling a wide range of novel conformal and wearable electronics. Applications immediately pertinent to the commercial wearable electronics market include clothing- or skin-mounted fitness trackers and health monitors. Applications pertinent to the military include adaptive camouflage and wearable heads-up displays. This project will enable the development of an elastic drop-in replacement for existing rigid display technologies, directly enabling a flexible form factor for a wide range of current electronic devices. This project will bring an innovative display to market that will permanently change how people interface with electronics.
This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop and fabricate highly elastic and transparent displays. Current displays are limited in flexibility due to the rigid, brittle materials employed, specifically indium tin oxide (ITO). This project will replace all rigid materials with stretchable nanomaterials, specifically graphene and carbon nanotubes, resulting in a highly transparent and elastic organic light emitting diode display. Graphene and carbon nanotubes offer the technical advantages of high optical transparency and electrical conductivity. Most importantly, these nanomaterials provide superior elastic properties with demonstrated strain limits greater than 20%. The technical advantages of the advanced nanomaterials employed will enable the development of a video display with the functionality of a TV, yet as thin as paper, as transparent as glass, and as stretchable as rubber.
