Companies like LG and Samsung have been showing off bendable OLED displays for years, but in practice the still rely on internal components that are much less flexible. This is a problem that a team of scientists from several universities in China are close to solving. They’ve developed the first ever light-emitting, transparent, flexible paper. This in and of itself isn’t a particularly useful invention, but it could form the basis for the flexible electronics of the future.
Many of the attempts to make flexible electronics viable have relied on petrochemicals, which is largely what we rely on now. The material created by the Chinese team has promise not only because of its properties, but because it’s composed of wood, flour, and an array of tiny biocompatible quantum dots. The process by which this happens is called suction-filtration, and has little to no environmental impact.
Quantum dots is a blanket term for any crystalline semiconductor that is small enough to exhibit quantum effects. They can be used in photodetection technology, biological research, computing, and as in this case, light generation. The miniscule semiconducting crystals in this glowing paper are made out of zinc and selenium, which shouldn’t pose harm to anyone after the material is disposed of. Most current electronics need to be properly recycled to avoid contamination of the environment.
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