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Display technology

MicroLEDs get in line

Nature Electronics volume 6, pages 182–183 (2023)Cite this article

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By selectively engineering the surface roughness of micro-light-emitting-diode chips, and thus the strength of the van der Waals forces that bond them to a substrate, large-area displays can be created via a fluidic-assisted transfer method.

Micro-light-emitting-diode (μLED) displays offer potential advantages — in terms of energy efficiency, brightness, operational lifetime and material reliability1,2,3 — over current display technologies and are expected to become a key display technology in the near future. When fabricating such displays, thousands of μLED chips need to be quickly transferred onto driver backplanes and positioned with high accuracy. However, direct-transfer methods — including pick-and-place, stamp transfer, and laser stamping — are limited by their high cost and process complexity4,5. Fluidic mass transfer methods are a simple and cost-effective alternative6,7, and fluidic self-assembly techniques have been used for single-face alignment of μLED chips that have a low aspect ratio (such as plate-, disk- and flake-shaped devices). However, manipulating the buoyancy and dynamics of the structures in solution is still challenging. Writing in Nature Electronics, Geonwook Yoo, Jaewook Jeong, Kyungwook Hwang and colleagues now report a fluidic-assisted self-aligning transfer process for μLED chips that uses differences in the van der Waals forces of opposite sides of the μLED chips8.

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Fig. 1: A fluidic-assisted transfer system of μLED chips for active-matrix displays.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Kookmin University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Young Rag Do

  2. Display Research Center, Korea Electronics Technology Institute, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea

    Gang Yeol Yoo

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  1. Young Rag Do
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  2. Gang Yeol Yoo
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Correspondence to Young Rag Do.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Do, Y.R., Yoo, G.Y. MicroLEDs get in line. Nat Electron 6, 182–183 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-023-00937-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-023-00937-9

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