The development of electronic applications can take on
many new forms to include foldable and wearable displays to monitor
human health and act as medical robots. Such devices rely on
organic-light emitting diodes (OLEDs) for optimization. However, it
is still challenging to develop semiconducting materials with high
mechanical flexibility due to their restricted use in conventional
electronic formats. In a new report on Science Advances, Minwoo
Choi and a team of scientists in Electronic Engineering and
Materials Science in the Republic of Korea, developed a wearable,
full-colour OLED display using a two-dimensional (2-D)
material-based backplane transistor. They engineered an 18-by-18
thin-film transistor array on a thin molybdenum disulfide (MoS2)
film and transferred it to an aluminium oxide (Al2O3)/polyethylene
terephthalate (PET) surface. Choi et al. then deposited red, green
and blue OLED pixels on the device surface and observed excellent
mechanical and electrical properties of the 2-D material. The
surface could drive circuits to control the OLED pixels to form an
ultrathin, wearable device.
