Encapsulation of Flexible Displays: Background, Status, and Perspective

Flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays have become a mainstream technology in high-end mobile consumer applications in the last few years. By making possible a radical differentiation from the incumbent liquid crystal display technology, thin-film encapsulation (TFE) has been the key technology for the success of OLED displays. This chapter provides a historical and technical background on the TFE evolution applied to OLED, describes the technically challenges overcome in its development, and discusses current status and present and future challenges for the next generation of flexible OLED displays. Large paperwall or rollable TV is an emerging field of application for flexible displays requiring TFE. Modification of the multilayer TFE technology integrated with barrier films in a hybrid encapsulation scheme is expected to be the upcoming evolution of TFE for application to stretchable displays and large-size flexible TV.