RGB-Color Textile-Based Flexible and Transparent OLEDs Considering Aesthetics

Abstract

Recently, as state-of-the-art displays, wearable electronic devices and free-form displays have begun to attract attention to the point that much research on textile-based displays has been actively conducted as an ultimate platform for wearable displays. However, although many studies have reported organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) as the most suitable type for textile-based displays due to their high opto-electronic performance and flexibility, most research on textile-based OLEDs (textile OLEDs) has left for the future improvements that require the use of transparent OLEDs (trOLEDs) for applications where aesthetics are important, such as fashion displays and automobile interiors. Herein, RGB-color trOLEDs are designed using a dielectric-metal-dielectric transparent electrode to overcome the limitations of previous works on textile-based non-transparent OLEDs and to improve the aesthetic elements of textile displays. The opto-electronic performance and the mechanical characteristics of textile RGB trOLEDs are analyzed, and specifically, this study suggests a new method and a novel equation for an optical analysis to quantify the clarity of printed color images (i.e., information) on a textile substrate when trOLEDs on the textile substrate are not operated, as needed to optimize and maximize the aesthetic elements of textile displays.