Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems (Fraunhofer IPMS) - Page 2

Researchers from the Fraunhofer IPMS have developed a semi-transparent high resolution OLED microdisplay, that is significantly lighter than conventional combiner-based optical see-through near-to-eye systems. The specification of the display was not disclosed, but one can see it's a monochrome yellow panel.

The Fraunhofer researchers developed a new semi-transparent OLED-on-silicon microdisplay technology, which enabled the new display. The technology is based on modern and advanced silicon CMOS processes, applied to silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. The new wafer technology can be used to implement very thin circuitry layers. With the help of a specific IC design and an appropriate transfer-to-glass process flow, the transparent OLEDs were enabled.

The Fraunhofer FEP Institute published this nice video that shows its latest technology innovations, including its OLED (regular and bi-directional) microdisplays, its new AR/VR optics, flexible OLED lighting panels, its Monarch flexible and transparent OLED panels, sensor and coating technologies and more.

The Fraunhofer FEP also created and published a new virtual tour of its facilities, where you can have a look inside the labs and flexible organic electronics R&D clearnroom.

Notion Systems, MBraun and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research (Fraunhofer IAP) are co-developing new inkjet production technologies, aimed for the display market - specifically for OLED, QD and microdisplays.

The three partners are combining their respective competencies to present themselves together as a partnership supplier off all-in-one solutions. The Fraunhofer IAP is developing custom-made processes for display manufacturing with tailor-made inks. To achieve an industrial-scale best-in-class process solution, the parties are looking into all major pre-and post-processing steps, the substrate and the production equipment such as the inkjet print head.

In 2018 the Fraunhofer FEP institute announced it is starting to offer a design kit that includes several flexible and transparent OLED lighting panels. The Monarch Kit includes several colored butterflies samples, and the researchers were kind enough to send us one such kit for a short review.

So first of all, these OLEDs look beautiful. They shine a beautiful uniform colored light and are very nicely done. There's not much functionality, but it shows the potential of flexible OLED lighting quite nicely.