Princeton, USDC Team To Develop Clear, Flexible Display Backplanes

The Princeton University Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM) and the U.S. Display Consortium (USDC) have teamed up to develop technology to produce amorphous silicon thin-film transistors (a-Si TFTs) on a clear, high-temperature-capable polymer foil substrate.

The $1.7 million research and development contract is aimed at adapting current display industry processing envelopes to polymer substrates to obtain TFT performance equivalent to that on glass. Flexible, active-matrix TFT display backplanes would suit applications ranging from reflective to transmissive to emissive displays.

Princeton’s two-year program is based on a new type of clear, flexible polymer substrate that can be used at temperatures greater than 300°C. Project researchers have already made a-Si TFTs at 280°C.

PRISM and the USDC hope to demonstrate an electrophoretic test array and an OLED test array on the plastic substrate by the end of the contract’s first year.

Princeton University
www.princeton.edu/engineering

U.S. Display Consortium
www.usdc.org