In recent years, display technology has been upgrading from "rigid" to "flexible." Flexible displays, resilient and stretchable, are today increasingly applied in consumer electronics, commercial spaces, intelligent interaction and other fields.

Flexible screens are by no means simply bending traditional glass screens. They are like a multi-layered "rainbow cake" composed of a base, electronic components, encapsulation films, and a cover plate. Each layer of the "cake" has to be flexible so that the entire structure can be bent and folded, while ensuring the display effect and durability of the screen. This requires collaborative innovation in multiple fields such as flexible base materials, core electronic components, structural design, and flexible packaging technology.

With the development of emerging technologies such as smart homes, the Internet of Things, and virtual reality, display devices need to show higher flexibility and stability. The development of new intrinsic flexible materials is a solution to these problems.

A research team from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has successfully fabricated high-performance intrinsic stretchable PLED (polymer light-emitting diode) devices by introducing microcrystalline elastomers into luminescent polymer matrix.

Intrinsic flexibility not only enhances durability and stability significantly, but also opens up new application scenarios. This shift from "people adapting to devices" to "devices adapting to people" is the core charm of flexible display technology, inspiring expectations for more innovative products in the future.

Currently, intrinsic flexible displays are still in the stage of material verification and have not yet achieved large-scale application. The development of intrinsic flexibility still faces significant challenges in key aspects such as high elasticity self-healing substrates, electrodes, and flexible packaging materials and requires further cross-disciplinary research and joint efforts from the industry chain.