OLED Displays Could be Used in Smart Product Packaging
Organic light everywhere
That opens the door to OLEDs finding their way into all manner of everyday items. The biggest of several markets for cheap, flexible OLED displays may be in product packaging. Sheets of them could, for example, be used to create more visible logos and more attractive promotional wrappings to differentiate products on supermarket shelves, or they could be used as part of "smart packaging" to improve product quality and safety.
"One demonstrator we developed consists of a two-colour OLED display: one showing a green tick, the other a red cross. It could be used on packaging to let consumers know if a product has been opened or tampered with," the ROLLED coordinator says.
The tiny amount of energy OLED devices need to operate, could mean that they be powered by a small watch battery, solar cells or even radio waves. "It might be possible for a store to use its shelves as an RFID antenna that would power the OLEDs in the product packaging," Maaninen says.
The project team developed on that concept - an extension of Near Field Communication (NFC) - in another demonstrator that consisted of a simple business card showing the EU flag. A single-coloured OLED lit up the stars of the flag if a mobile phone with an RFID transmitter was placed near it.
Using flexible OLED displays in smart product packaging or even to replace paper billboard advertisements still remains some way off, however, as too does the vision of clothing embedded with OLEDs to display different messages, pictures or colours.
"Our flexible OLED devices could be used in clothes - the biggest barrier would be making them robust enough to survive being worn and put through a washing machine," Maaninen says.
Having developed the technical ability to produce flexible OLEDs roll to roll, the ROLLED project partners are now working to meet the needs and requirements of potential end applications. Their aim is to carry out the first market trials within the next two years.
ROLLED received funding under the ICT strand of the EU's Sixth Framework Programme for research.
- People:
- Arto Maaninen
- Places:
- Finland