Poly(amide-imide) materials for transparent and flexible displays

The key component currently missing for the next generation of transparent and flexible displays is a high-performance polymer material that is flexible, while showing optical and thermal properties of glass. It must be transparent to visible light and show a low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). While specialty plastics such as aromatic polyimides are promising, reducing their CTE and improving transparency simultaneously proved challenging, with increasing coloration the main problem to be resolved. We report a new poly(amide-imide) material that is flexible and displays glass-like behavior with a CTE value of 4 parts per million/degrees C. This novel polymer was successfully used as a substrate to fabricate transparent and flexible indium-gallium-zinc oxide thin-film transistors.