Stanford engineers develop a stretchable display

As part of an overarching quest to build skin-inspired electronics that are soft and stretchy, Stanford University chemical engineer Zhenan Bao and her research team have been developing a display to change that. Now, after more than three years of work, they show the proof of principle toward a stretchable, potentially reshapable display in a new paper published March 23 in Nature.

Their invention hinges on the discovery of a method to produce a high-brightness elastic light-emitting polymer, which functions like a filament in a lightbulb. The group’s resulting display is made entirely of stretchy polymers – synthetic plastic materials. The device has a maximum brightness at least two times that of a cellphone and can be stretched up to twice its original length without tearing.

Most light-emitting polymers are stiff and crack when stretched. Scientists can increase their flexibility by adding elastic insulating materials, such as rubber. But these additives decrease electrical conductivity, which requires the polymer to use a dangerously high voltage to generate even dim light.

About three years ago, however, postdoctoral scholar Zhitao Zhang discovered that a yellow-colored light-emitting polymer called SuperYellow not only became soft and pliable but also emitted brighter light when mixed with a type of polyurethane, a stretchy plastic.