SBIR-STTR Award

Low-Cost Polymer Films for Foldable Cover Lenses Used in Flexible Displays
Award last edited on: 7/19/2019

Sponsored Program
SBIR
Awarding Agency
NSF
Total Award Amount
$1,650,997
Award Phase
2
Solicitation Topic Code
MI
Principal Investigator
Radu Reit

Company Information

Ares Materials Inc

17217 Waterview Parkway Suite 1202
Dallas, TX 75252
   (404) 429-0762
   info@aresmaterials.com
   www.aresmaterials.com
Location: Single
Congr. District: 03
County: Collin

Phase I

Contract Number: 1721719
Start Date: 7/1/2017    Completed: 6/30/2018
Phase I year
2017
Phase I Amount
$225,000
This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will assess the commercial viability of a new substrate material specifically designed for reducing the manufacturing complexity of stretchable electronics. Currently a $1.6 million market, stretchable electronics are expected to grow at a cumulative annual growth rate of 101.3% to reach $412 million in sales by 2023 due to the surge in wearable technologies, structural health monitoring devices, and medical diagnostic tools. In part, the current market size for stretchable electronics is limited by the immature manufacturing tools and techniques required, such as transfer- and nano-printing. The research and development funded by the Phase I SBIR could lead to a drastic reduction in manufacturing complexity, allowing stretchable electronic devices to be manufactured using current industry standard photolithographic techniques.The intellectual merit of this project lies in the ability to create electronic substrate materials with intrinsic stiffness differences (those without laminated layers, patterned fillers, etc.) that are defined using standard lithography techniques. Specifically, these substrates can be spatially segregated into regions of low Young's modulus (the soft matrix) and regions of high Young's modulus (the stiff islands) with a difference in modulus between these two regions reaching ratios of 1000:1 (stiff:soft). In the initial work, demonstrations of these spatially-heterogeneous modulus substrates show that spatial resolution can be achieved at the millimeter scale, and can introduce localized strain across the substrate as a function of the patterned stiff regions. The objectives for this project are focused on (a) engineering an optimal starting substrate material with the desired properties for the soft region and (b) demonstrating microfabrication of micropatterned thin-film components (feature sizes

Phase II

Contract Number: 1853034
Start Date: 3/15/2019    Completed: 2/28/2021
Phase II year
2019
(last award dollars: 2020)
Phase II Amount
$1,425,997

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to provide the $4B/year cover lens market an economically viable material for the upcoming form-factor it must address: foldable displays. While this market size currently represents displays that employ rigid LCD or OLED technologies, major handset manufacturers are looking to move to highly differentiated form-factors such as foldable phones to gain market share in the competitive flagship smartphone tier. To do so, the entire display module must be foldable and one of the last components to allow for this behavior is the cover lens. Foldable displays therefore must eliminate hard, brittle materials such as glass and utilize materials with the same excellent scratch-resistant properties of glass, but with the flexibility and durability under folding of polymers. This project develops a novel polysulfide thermoset for this application. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to develop the first low-cost, high-performance foldable cover lens technology using polysulfide thermosetting polymer films. Currently, the amorphous polysulfide thermosets can yield the excellent optical properties and folding durability required for application in foldable display technologies. However, these materials are as of yet unable to meet the strict hardness requirement set by manufacturers looking to replace rigid glass cover lenses. In this work, the expansion of the polysulfide thermoset family of materials will be undertaken to introduce chemical and physical modifications which allow for the resultant thermosetting films to possess the requisite hardness. The resultant resin materials will then be converted using standard wet-film extrusion and curing tools commonly found in the printing industry, allowing for cost-competitive production of the resulting films. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.