South Korean LG announces stretchable micro-LED screen expanding up to 50%

Amazing stuff! It is almost Christmas time! Is this popular science article actually advertisement?

When is an LED screen stretched too thin? 😊

"... For more than a decade, LG Display has been developing flexible screens that not only show bright, colorful visuals but can also be bent and twisted into different shapes to suit different applications. These could include fashion-focused wearables, uneven interactive surfaces and roll-up TVs and tablets. ...

"Stretchable displays are not only thin and lightweight but also capable of adhering to irregularly curved surfaces like clothing and skin," said the company in a press statement. ..."

LG flexes its display muscle with stretchable micro-LED screen "LG Display has built on the technology powering its flexible screen prototype that stretched by 20% in 2022, announcing what's claimed to be the world's first stretchable display capable of expanding up to 50%."

LG Display Succeeds in Developing World‘s First Stretchable Display that Expands by 50 Percent (company news release)

LG Display's latest flexible screen prototype can be bent and twisted, and also stretched to add 50% to its length

Rollable OLED’s Moment Is Near. Flexible smartphones and more

Good news, I suppose! So a smartphone morphes into a smart watch? Will they finally become a lot cheaper that is the question?

"The Mobile World Congress (MWC), a technology convention held each year in Barcelona, placed a spotlight on rollable phones like the Phantom Ultimate, a scroll-like concept from Tecno Mobile, and Motorola’s Adaptive Display Concept, a phone that can wrap around your wrist like a smartwatch. They were followed by a new patent filed by Samsung that hints at a future smartphone or tablet that rolls up like a newspaper [in the digital age ???]. ...
The Royole FlexPai, released in 2018, was the first smartphone with a foldable OLED display. It wasn’t well-received, however, and Samsung’s popular Galaxy Fold stole the spotlight. ...
The LG Signature Rollable OLED TV R, released in 2021, was the only consumer device to ever ship with a rollable OLED display. It was priced at US $100,000. ..."

Rollable OLED’s Moment Is Near - IEEE Spectrum Experts think flexible phones “could come up quick”

Motorola exhibited a concept rollable smartphone that wraps around the wrist and bends in multiple positions, at the Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona

A key to the future of robots could be hiding in liquid crystals

Recommendable! I am not expert enough to fully grasp the import of this discovery, but it seems to be very relevant and may have great potential!

"... The team ... discovered they could manipulate the three-dimensional orientation of liquid crystals by controlling light exposures of a photosensitive material deposited on glass.

They shined polarized and unpolarized light at the liquid crystals through a microscope. In polarized light, light waves oscillate in specific directions rather than randomly in all directions, as they would in unpolarized light. The team used the method to create a microscopic lens of liquid crystals able to focus light depending on the polarization of light shining through it. ...
The findings could lead to the creation of programmable tools that shapeshift in response to stimuli, like those needed in soft, rubberlike robots to handle complex objects and environments or camera lenses that automatically focus depending on lighting conditions ..."

From the abstract:

"Liquid crystals offer a dynamic platform for developing advanced photonics and soft actuation systems due to their unique and facile tunability and reconfigurability. Achieving precise spatial patterning of the liquid crystal alignment is critical to developing electro-optical devices, programmable origami, directed colloidal assembly, and controlling active matter. Here, a simple method is demonstrated to achieve continuous 3D control of the directions of liquid crystal mesogens using a two-step photo-exposure process. In the first step, polarized light sets the orientation in the plane of confining substrates; the second step uses unpolarized light of a prescribed dose to set the out-of-plane orientation. The method enables smoothly varying orientational patterns with sub-micrometer precision. As a demonstration, the setup is used to create gradient-index lenses with parabolic refractive index profiles that remain stable without external electric fields. The lenses' focal length and sensitivity to light polarization are characterized through experimental and numerical methods. The findings pave the way for developing next-generation photonic devices and actuated materials, with potential applications in molecular self-assembly, re-configurable optics, and responsive matter."

A key to the future of robots could be hiding in liquid crystals | Hub Robots and cameras of the future could be made of liquid crystals, thanks to a new discovery that significantly expands the potential of the chemicals already common in computer displays and digital watches

Spatial Photo-Patterning of Nematic Liquid Crystal Pretilt and its Application in Fabricating Flat Gradient-Index Lenses (no public access)

CES 2024: Transparent TV sets are coming

This seems to be a eye catcher at CES 2024 in Las Vegas! Do they make much sense in your living room? But in other environments ...

It appears also many photographers have some difficulties to catch a good picture of it.

Credits: I saw Samsung and LG's new transparent TVs at CES, and there's a clear winner

Here is the best photo I found so far

Engineers invent vertically stacked, full-color microscopic LEDs

Good news! This could be a significant breakthrough in display technology! When virtual reality becomes reality! 😊

"... But much like computer transistors, LEDs are reaching a limit to how small they can be while also performing effectively. This limit is especially noticeable in close-range displays such as augmented and virtual reality devices ...
Each stacked pixel can generate the full commercial range of colors and measures about 4 microns wide. The microscopic pixels, or “micro-LEDs,” can be packed to a density of 5,000 pixels per inch. ...
“With our vertical micro-LEDs, you could have a completely immersive experience and wouldn’t be able to distinguish virtual from reality.” ...
But micro-LED fabrication requires extreme accuracy, as microscopic pixels of red, green, and blue need to first be grown separately on wafers, then precisely placed on a plate, in exact alignment with each other in order to properly reflect and produce various colors and shades. Achieving such microscopic precision is a difficult task, and entire devices need to be scrapped if pixels are found to be out of place. ..."

From the abstract:

"Micro-LEDs (µLEDs) have been explored for augmented and virtual reality display applications that require extremely high pixels per inch and luminance. However, conventional manufacturing processes based on the lateral assembly of red, green and blue (RGB) µLEDs have limitations in enhancing pixel density. Recent demonstrations of vertical µLED displays have attempted to address this issue by stacking freestanding RGB LED membranes and fabricating top-down, but minimization of the lateral dimensions of stacked µLEDs has been difficult. Here we report full-colour, vertically stacked µLEDs that achieve, to our knowledge, the highest array density (5,100 pixels per inch) and the smallest size (4 µm) reported to date. This is enabled by a two-dimensional materials-based layer transfer technique that allows the growth of RGB LEDs of near-submicron thickness on two-dimensional material-coated substrates via remote or van der Waals epitaxy, mechanical release and stacking of LEDs, followed by top-down fabrication. The smallest-ever stack height of around 9 µm is the key enabler for record high µLED array density. We also demonstrate vertical integration of blue µLEDs with silicon membrane transistors for active matrix operation. These results establish routes to creating full-colour µLED displays for augmented and virtual reality, while also offering a generalizable platform for broader classes of three-dimensional integrated devices."

Engineers invent vertical, full-color microscopic LEDs | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stacking light-emitting diodes instead of placing them side by side could enable fully immersive virtual reality displays and higher-resolution digital screens.

Vertical full-colour micro-LEDs via 2D materials-based layer transfer (no public access)