Electrophoretic Displays Fabricated on Ultra-Slim Flexible Glass Substrates

Abstract

Ultra-slim flexible glass substrates enable high performance displays and electronic devices through their inherent benefits of a high-quality surface, process compatibility, thermal and dimensional stability, optical transmission, and barrier properties. This study demonstrates use of flexible glass as a backplane substrate for both active matrix displays with organic thin-film transistors (TFTs) as well as segmented displays. The demonstrated 4.7-inch active matrix VGA displays have a resolution of 170 dpi (640 <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\times$</tex></formula> 480 pixels), pixel size of <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">${\hbox{150}}\ \mu{\hbox{m}}\times {\hbox{150}}\ \mu{\hbox{m}}$</tex></formula> , and aperture ratio of 40%. The dimensional stability benefit of flexible glass was clearly observed when compared to the registration of polymer substrate devices. This study demonstrates the capability and benefits of flexible glass substrates in devices fabricated with solution-based processing as a step toward roll-to-roll flexible electronic fabrication.