This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project aims to quickly enable the large-scale manufacturing of organic and flexible electronic devices by leveraging the existing infrastructure used in the display industry. Currently, proven manufacturing techniques do not exist that can make flexible electronics at scale, and all proposed methods would require the abandonment of billions of dollars of equipment and decades of manufacturing expertise based around photolithography. This proposal aims to solve this problem, using photoresist technology that is designed to work with a wide range of materials including organic electronics. Previous research has established the feasibility of these resists, but there is still much work needed to apply the technology to more complex and integrated systems, especially when working with flexible substrates. The Phase I project has revealed the areas of improvement needed to reach mass production and high yields for demanding display applications. This project will address these issues and will create a high-performance process capable of making flexible eReaders with high yield. Researchers will work with industrial and academic partners to gain a better understanding of all of the issues required to be overcome as the process is scaled up to a real application.
The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will be very large for the display industry, which seeks to manufacture innovative flexible eReader displays for the large worldwide education market. The broader commercial potential lies in the sales of high-margin and high-volume chemicals to an industry that will quickly ramp production. The photoresist market for liquid crystal displays (LCDs) is currently $1.2 billion, and it is anticipated that the proposed technology will dominate the organic electronic resist market, which is anticipated to reach similar values. The societal benefits will be seen when the eReaders are brought to classrooms around the world. Their low weight, low power consumption, and physical robustness will allow these displays to fully replace heavy and expensive textbooks, changing the lives of millions of children domestically, and in developing countries such as China and Russia.
In this project, Orthogonal has taken its environmentally friendly chemical technology and created a commercial ready product for the manufacturing of flexible displays. Flexible displays are much like today's cell phone screens, monitors or TVs, except they can be curved, bent or rolled up without damaging the screens. This advance will enable many exciting new products that integrate seamlessly with clothing or the environment like windows and walls that today is impossible with rigid displays. The most promising technology for making these flexible displays is organic electronics, which are based on plastic materials that have properties like transistor switching, light generating or sensing. Organic electronics are intrinsically flexible, and can be coated at low temperatures, so ordinary plastics can be used to make displays instead of glass. Orthogonal allows these displays to be made in the same way as current LCDs are made today, paving the way to high-volume, low-cost manufacturing that will make these displays ubiquitous. Work focused on improving the materials so they were suitable for manufacturing conditions. Displays must be made without defects, and any variation in the performance of the materials can lower the yield of the process, meaning more of the displays must be discarded. This raises the cost of the displays. The key to a good manufacturing process is having tolerant process conditions so small variations do not create defects. Improvements were made to the performance of the materials throughout the process, from the light sensitivity that is necessary to make patterns in the Orthogonal materials, to the etching process which removes the organic electronic materials to form patterned layers that make up the display. Throughout the process, materials were tested with customers to make sure that the improvements were the right ones to make and the yield was actually higher. Although it will take some additional time for commercial products to emerge from this technology, Orthogonal has solved a key piece of the problem and will be ready for manufacturing when the time is right.
