Researchers Highlight the Design of Meta-Display Technology Using Micro-LEDs

For the first time, the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, an institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT, has invented a new stretchable meta-display technology that can be extended up to 25% without image degradation.

The research group has produced a distortion-free stretchable meta-display during uniaxial stretching, and their results were published in the peer-reviewed journal Advanced Functional Materials

When flexible materials in nature, such as rubber, are stretched longitudinally, they typically decrease in breadth, causing picture distortion. To date, this was also true in situations of rubber-based stretchable displays.

On a circuit board, the KIMM research team used mechanical metamaterials with a negative Poisson ratio. When a material is stretched lengthwise, the Poisson’s ratio describes how much it decreases in breadth. Stretching a mechanical metamaterial with a Poisson’s ratio of -1 lengthwise has the same effect as stretching at the same ratio widthwise. As a result, pictures on a display made with such materials are not distorted.

The team combined mechanical metamaterial designs and manufacturing technology with the world’s biggest large-area micro-LED roll transfer technology to create this breakthrough meta-display manufacturing method. The study team wants to do follow-up research on micro-LED displays for ultra-realistic metaverses based on the positive outcomes of this project.

In addition, the team has formed research institution spin-off companies, YTS Micro-Tech and MCK-Tech, to encourage the practical use of these innovative technologies in response to the burgeoning mini-LED and graphene sectors.