| Display Backplanes |
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One of the many areas of opportunity for new organic materials is in the backplanes of flexible displays. Most modern displays have two main parts: a frontplane, producing the actual image out of numerous pixels, and a backplane, housing the circuits to control which pixels get turned on and off. Currently, several new frontplane technologies exist, each with its unique benefits and drawbacks. Electrophoretic displays used in the E-Paper as well as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) both offer great benefits over conventional displays such as reduced energy usage, better contrast, lower manufacturing costs, and flexibility. The Readius™ - a foldable e-reader - is a perfect example of the new applications that are possible with these new frontplane technologies. Despite these benefits, the full power of these new frontplane technologies can not be exploited due to the conventional electronics used in the backplanes, making them more expensive, un-printable, and inflexible. By designing new organic materials to be used in backplanes, we can have truly flexible displays with many novel applications . |
