SBIR Phase I: Flexible Printed OLED Displays for Automotive and Ride-Hailing

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为乘车和汽车应用创建灵活的乘客识别显示器。这是一个明显的痛点，因为许多司机选择相同的型号汽车。我们的第一个应用程序是解决乘车乘客识别问题，但这对自动驾驶汽车来说变得更加关键-自动驾驶汽车与其目标乘客之间的视觉通信的唯一方法将是通过显示器。通过帮助实现服务车辆的自动化车队，我们的显示器将带来显著的社会效益，包括减少排放，改善老年人和残疾人的流动性，以及减少交通事故。除了汽车，研究人员估计，2017年有200亿台连接到互联网的设备不是计算机，到2025年将增长到1250亿台。这些将影响许多领域，包括健康和保健，工厂生产，公共安全，零售，农业，家庭和办公室。它们将实现更好的资源分配、预测性维护、运营管理、工人培训、任务自动化、能源管理和安全。不是所有这些？物联网？设备需要显示器，但那些确实使用它们来输入和信息中继的设备呢？我们的显示器设计的确切用途。拟议的项目将开发卷到卷印刷无源矩阵OLED（PMOLED）显示技术。PMOLED显示器建立在限定像素的图案化透明导电阳极上。迄今为止，工业上制造这种阳极的唯一方法是光刻法。这是一个缓慢而昂贵的批量过程，但它是唯一可以产生所需结果的方法。我们的高分辨率可印刷阳极取代了现有材料和平版印刷工艺，以创建覆盖在OLED阳极上的连续塑料卷，可装入印刷机。这为全印刷显示器奠定了基础，使用柔性版印刷制造，与印刷报纸相同的技术。通过这项工作，我们将生产完全印刷的PMOLED显示器原型。这些轻薄的柔性显示屏将具有极高的对比度，同时仅使用背光LCD所需功率的20%，具有宽视角，易于阅读和灵活性，以适应任何表面。如果成功，我们将能够以比行业标准吞吐量快1000倍的速度打印显示屏，同时减少80%的材料浪费。这种成本节约将使我们的显示器成为信息显示用途的首选，特别是在设计驱动的应用中。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the creation of flexible passenger identification displays for ride-hailing and automotive applications. This is a distinct pain point as many drivers choose the same model cars. Our first application is to solve ride-hailing passenger identification, but this becomes more critical with autonomous vehicles -- the only method of visual communication between an autonomous car and its target passenger will be via display. By helping to enable autonomous fleets of service vehicles, our displays will impart significant societal benefits, including reduced emissions, improved mobility for the elderly and disabled, and fewer traffic accidents. Beyond automotive, researchers estimate that in 2017 there are 20 billion devices connected to the Internet that are not computers, growing to 125 billion by 2025. These will influence many areas, including health and wellness, factory production, public safety, retail, agriculture, homes, and offices. They will enable better resource allocation, predictive maintenance, operations management, worker training, task automation, energy management, and safety. Not all of these ?Internet of Things? devices need displays, but those that do use them for input and information relay ? the exact uses for which our displays are designed.The proposed project will develop roll-to-roll printed passive matrix OLED (PMOLED) display technology. PMOLED displays are built upon a patterned transparent conductive anode that defines the pixels. To date, the only method used in industry to create this anode is photolithography. This is a slow and expensive batch process, but it is the only method that can produce the required results. Our high-resolution printable anode replaces both the incumbent material and the lithographic process to create a continuous roll of plastic covered in OLED anodes that can be loaded into a printing press. This lays the foundation for fully printed displays, fabricated using flexography, the same technique used to print newspapers. Through this work, we will produce fully printed PMOLED display prototypes. These thin, flexible displays will have extremely high contrast while using only 20% of the power required by a backlit LCD, with wide viewing angles for easy readability and flexibility to conform to any surface. If successful, we will be able to print displays 1000 times faster than the industry standard throughput while reducing materials waste by 80%. Such cost savings will make our displays the obvious choice for information display use, especially in design-driven applications.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.