Flexibility of LED displays to increase thanks to silk integration

Using silk in the production of the LED displays of the future will allow for much more flexible screens and systems, according to researchers in Taiwan.

A project conducted by academics at Tsin Hua University has found that silk will be the most efficient and cheapest material to use in the production of LED displays which are entirely flexible and ready for impressive application in the next few years.

LED displays and the screens of e-book readers are just two types of technology which will benefit from using silk to increase flexibility, according to the researchers.

The project has found that not only will silk make it possible to produce malleable LED displays, which can be manipulated like paper, but it may even be able to up the performance capabilities of the transistors used in the devices created subsequent to its commercial debut.

The use of silk in LED displays is not just a pipe dream but something that researchers are already discussing with potential manufacturing partners, according to SlashGear.

Professor Hwang Jenn-Change and his team worked with liquid silk to form thin films which insulate transistors in a flexible format. The cost of using this material would be just over 15 pence per product using the advanced LED display technology.

Although in the world of fabric, silk is considered to be a premium product, it is still considerably cheaper than comparable alternatives available to electronics manufacturers today.

Using a naturally occurring substance has obvious ecological advantages which could help make the devices produced using this technology even greener than previous generations of portable gadgets.

The researchers have not said what plans have been made for the future of these new LED displays, but time should show just what will become of flexible screens.