Engineers at the University of California, Los Angeles, United States, have created the first fully stretchable organic light-emitting diode (OLED), a step toward a future of stretchable electronics that promises video displays that could be rolled up, or cell phones that could shrink or swell. Previously, scientists had only been able to create devices that were bendable, but couldn’t stretch, or stretchable pieces that connected smaller, rigid LEDs. One challenge with stretchable electronics is the ability to create an electrode that maintains its conductivity when deformed. The UCLA researchers were able to devise a way of creating a carbon nanotube and polymer electrode, and layer the combination onto a stretchable, light-emitting plastic. Qibing Pei, a professor of materials science and engineering and principal investigator of the project, said, “The infusion of the polymer into the carbon nanotube coatings preserved the original network and its high conductance.” The resulting device can be stretched up to 45 percent while emitting a colored light. According to Shenan Bao, a Stanford professor of chemical engineering who works on stretchable solar cells, “We are still some ways off from having high-performance, really robust, intrinsically stretchable devices,” but “with this work and those from others, we are getting closer and closer to realizing this kind of sophisticated and multifunctional electronic skin.”
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/38439/page1/