This flexible mini OLED display is 3D printed and points to a future where we may make our own TV

A team of researchers from the University of Minnesota have made a unique breakthrough: have created a flexible mini OLED screen thanks to a 3D printer.

The achievement suggests a future where we could print our OLED screens directly at home via a 3D printer from start to finish. The screen is only 1.5 inches wide and only uses 64 pixels (8×8), but it may be just the first of many steps in that direction.

At the moment it does not pay, but who knows if it will in the future

The team of researchers used an extrusion 3D printing system to manufacture both electrodes and interconnections, encapsulation and insulation. In total, six layers were 3D printed that ended up forming a small 8 x 8 pixel matrix.

For the project, those responsible used a more advanced 3D printer than the ones we can see on the market today: it is a model that according to these researchers “It costs about the same as a Tesla Model S“, which in its basic model slightly exceeds 100,000 euros.

Although the flexible mini OLED display they have created is very basic in terms of resolution, this team believes that the process can be improved to create much more complex displays in the future. For them this makes it “easy to imagine that this could be translated into print all kinds of screens by ourselves at home or while we move in a few years, in a small portable printer “.

A Full HD screen (1,920 x 1,080) needs more than two million pixels, so it seems clear that there is still a long way to go. The industrial 3D printer used of course also distances this type of project from the common of mortals, but of course it can be an interesting milestone for the future.

Via | Interesting Engineering