Samsung has showcased a prototype of an OLED panel that is foldable. Their demonstration also revealed that even after 100,000 folding and unfolding cycles the panel remains almost unaffected. 

Foldable OLEDs
The OLED technology has many picture quality strengths but OLED technology also has some unique characteristics that are impossible to recreate with LCD and plasma technologies. 


Flexible Samsung OLED panel

OLED allows manufacturers to create transparent panels but Samsung is also exploring flexible and foldable OLED panels. And Samsung just showcased an impressive OLED prototype that is foldable. To demonstrate the unique features of the panel, Samsung performed 100,000 folding and unfolding cycles; yet the panel was pretty much unaffected and maintained superb picture quality.

After 100,000 tries Samsung revealed that brightness had fallen just 6 % (in the foldable area), which is more or less insignificant to the human eye. 


Samsung’s OLED panel is foldable

The panel consists of two different OLED panels, a protective front glass and hyper-elastic material. When the screens are unfolded the conjunction is invisible, and when the panels are folded they are almost touching.

The glass layer also functions as a touch-sensitive surface, making mobile phone or tablet integration possible.

Samsung made no official statements as to when they plan to release such panels but they see it as a great solution for tablets. Samsung has previously said that they plan to mass produce rollable (flexible) OLED panels in 2013-2014. 

Source: PhysOrg