Are you an engineer who thrives on solving problems? Well, it is said that when it comes to the design of mobile devices, one of the biggest challenges to overcome would be to maximize the display while minimizing the size of the device. Researchers from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in South Korea intend to deliver such a premise using a seamless foldable display prototype which is capable of folding in half – all without having you see a visible crease right down the middle as what most people would expect. Flexible, extendable displays have always been of interest to people, but the majority of these can be bent or rolled – but never folded for obvious reasons. To come up with a display which can fold completely in half would be a triumph in engineering, as that would mean being able to deliver a large screen in a small, portable form. Guess the crease problem has been solved now, right?
How did the researchers overcome this problem? Well, the display comprises of two AMOLED panels, silicone rubber (a hyperelastic material), a protective glass cover, and a module case. With an extremely small folding radius of 1 mm, it creates the optical illusion that one panel lies almost completely on top of the other even when the display is folded at a 180° angle. In addition, the genius of the glass cover means it will stop scratches and such from happening on the AMOLED display while letting it double as touchscreen capable to boot.
So far, the foldable display’s mechanical and optical robustness have been tested by folding and unfolding it 100,000 times, with just the relative brightness at the junction decreasing by a mere 6% – now how about that? As this difference cannot be recognized by the human eye for most of us, such deterioration is considered negligible. It will still take a few years before this technology goes mainstream though, so perhaps the DS 3D II will come with something of the sort?
Filed in . Read more about AMOLED, Oled, Prototype and Samsung.