back to article Japanese boffin boasts electrospray OLEDs

Displays created using self-illuminating organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology "could be manufactured as inexpensively as printing newspapers," according to one of the researchers involved in developing the new manufacturing process. As reported in Nanowerk, one Yutaka Yamagata of the Japanese research center, RIKEN, …

COMMENTS

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  1. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge
    Troll

    Very soon

    Will this technology be making its debut on flying cars? I think the real product here is the $50 document.

  2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Potentially better than thrying to spray an LCD

    But since Wiley keeps asking to drop a pesky "Session cookie" on my machine I will pass.

    For a publishing house which supplies a lot of technical literature this seems a very old fashioned way to handle things.

    But I like the idea. In principle no precision seperation issues (like LCDs) and update speed should be reasonable (unlike eInk) but likely to be more power hungry.

    What you'd really want for one of those moving picture inserts in a magazine.

    Although some kind of cheap printable non volatile mass storage would still be a handicap. Perhaps its time they revisited the inverse to core store. Holse in an electroplated magnetic layer which localise the stored domain. Historically an also ran in the storage stakes but (potentially) very cheap and adequately fast.

  3. Bad Beaver
    Paris Hilton

    OLED sprayed me

    and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!

  4. frank ly
    Thumb Up

    @Bad Beaver re. OLED sprayed me

    Yes, but it's got integrated Wi-Fi, it lights up and shows new release movies on your chest. Now stand still and stop whining while we watch it.

  5. Mr Brush
    WTF?

    Misread title

    And there was me thinking Banksy and his fellow 'arty' vandals might have a whole new area to explore - Spray on OLED 'In-a-can'

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's all relative

    Re. this part:

    "Although "as inexpensively as printing newspapers" may sound wonderfully cheap, the infrastructure required for printing the daily news is pricey indeed."

    I don't know how much it costs to build a printing press capable of knocking out a national newspaper, but a state-of-the-art LCD plant will cost you around $4 billion nowadays.

    I reckon newspaper technology is likely to be cheaper than that.

  7. Nigel 11
    Go

    How efficient are these OLEDs?

    If the efficiency of OLEDs (electricity to light conversion) is over 10% and they can be manufactured by spray-painting, forget display panels. Just create a panel that emits white light, and say goodbye to those nasty greenish CFLs that have been forced on us in place of light bulbs.

    Light-emitting wallpaper (or ceiling paper), anyone?

  8. npupp 1
    Headmaster

    @ Kevin McMurtrie

    DARPA is earmarking $1Billion for applications to stealth hovercars.

    And no, the $50 is for a one off article purchase, educational institutions will pay a few $k to access a catalogue. $10 a page (and one of those is a 1/3rd filled! the cheek! lol) hardly good value for money.

    Also, El' Reg' article overplays the intensity/voltage relation, while true that up until an applied voltage of 25V the spray deposited OLED films have higher intensity compared to traditional (spun) OLED displays. The Int / V quickly tails off for sprayed films, and breaks down completely at ~32V (Spun breaks down at 40V). So spun can achieve higher overall intensity. Article does note results are for a spray deposited monolayer, and future work will have multiple spray deposited layers (hell, why publish one paper, when you can have 2 eh?). Luminesence spectra not measured but " positive charges or hydrogen ions may have affected the electrical / electroluminescent characteristics of MEH-PPV,"

  9. Dan 10
    Thumb Up

    @How efficient are these OLEDs?

    Sir, I likey your stylee!

    However, forget light sources in a room. I want a Tron Lightbike with this stuff!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Spray some on my margarita glass...

    ... and i'll surf The Reg while enjoying some tequila refreshment at work on my lunch ^H^H^H^H dinner break...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    And what about recycling?

    Cost to separate and dispose of the materials may push the real cost up.

  12. MinionZero
    Thumb Up

    Light-emitting wallpaper (or ceiling paper)

    I want high res displays on all walls and ceiling. That would be awesome for games, TV, even just wall paper we can download.

    Also ideally it would be powered by solar panels all over the buildings, so its free to use.

    ... where's the Jetsons icon when you need one. :)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    self-illuminating

    'Displays created using self-illuminating organic light-emitting diode'

    Just how exactly is it self illuminating? where is this phantom power source?

  14. Dan 10

    @MinionZero

    Well at that point it's as close to a holodeck as we're going to see for a few years - I've thought the idea of high-res walls would ace for a while now - and it certainly gives a new meaning to downloading a wallpaper.

    Put it on cars to alter the paint job daily.

    Put it on clothes for a 'Predator' look.

    Hell, put it on bike/motorbike safety gear - combine with proximity sensors so detection of objects within x vicinity (i.e. a car going by too closely) lights up the wearer like a warning beacon. Or apply it in the opposite way to see a kid light up when straying away from their parent(s).

    Imagine what company-sponsored sports kit might look like... a goalscorer/race winner would momentarily turn into a corporate-liveried christmas tree!

    Then again, combine it with the RFID-capable national ID card - the entire outfit flashes when the card isn't carried, or the wearer is 'required' for questioning by authorities. Ugh.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Yet more interesting research from the far east

    Has the West (US/Europe) given up on research such as this? Or is it the case that all our "bright young minds" are training to be patent lawyers and so there is no-one who is able to perform reseach like this in this part of the world?

  16. EvilJason

    I think...

    That what they meant by self illuminating is that it emits light itself rather than use a back light unlike LCDs which require a light source behind to illuminate it.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Red light cameras here we come

    We have you tagged going through a red light in your green auto.

    I don't have a green auto. I have a red auto.

    erm, no, it's blue.

    Now it's yellow.

    now it's white...

    now it's zebra...

  18. MajorTom
    Go

    @Red light cameras...

    Well, regardless of the color of your car, I'm sure they're most interested in the photo they take of your license plate, and for redundancy's sake, the intersections can be easily rigged to interrogate your on-board RFID tag and read your unique ID number as you blaze by.

    Such RFID devices are already used for speeding and automating toll payments.

  19. mittfh

    @MajorTom

    Simple - use the film on your numberplates. Combine it with something like a Road Angel and a computer, and about 10 seconds after your numberplates have been snapped, they automatically change to a new combination.

    Of course there'd have to be a manual override so if you were stopped by a real police officer, you wouldn't have to explain why your numberplates had changed between being snapped and being read manually...

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