Stretchable, high-efficiency OLED

The vast amount of biological mysteries and biomedical challenges faced by humans provide a prominent drive for seamlessly merging electronics with biological living systems (e.g. human bodies) to achieve long-term stable functions. Towards this trend, one of the key requirements for electronics is to possess biomimetic form factors in various aspects for achieving long-term biocompatibility. For light-emitting devices such as OLED, biomimetic stretchability is highly needed for the use as conformable wearable displays and implanted light sources for biostimulation. In this talk, I will introduce our research in realizing stretchable properties onto OLED, based on a “first-principle” approach for the materials and device designs to realize high electroluminescence efficiency. Building upon the “third-generation” electroluminescent mechanism, thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF), we realized 1) the polymer emitter design that incorporates high stretchability without influencing the TADF processes, 2) emitting layer (EML) engineering that suppresses concentration quench, and 3) efficient electron injection and transport into the emitting layer.