Broadband antireflection film with moth-eye-like structure for flexible display applications

Abstract

Sunlight readability is a critical requirement for display devices, especially for mobile displays. Anti-reflection (AR) films can greatly improve sunlight readability by reducing the surface reflection. In this work, we demonstrate a broadband moth-eye-like AR surface on a flexible substrate, intended for flexible display applications. The motheye-like nanostructure was fabricated by an imprinting process onto a flexible substrate with a thin hard-coating film. The proposed nanostructure exhibits excellent AR with luminous reflectance <0.23% and haze below 1% with indistinguishable image quality deterioration. A rigorous numerical model is developed to simulate and optimize the optical behaviors. Excellent agreement between the experiment and simulation is obtained. Meanwhile, the nanostructure shows robust mechanical characteristics (pencil hardness >3 H), which is favorable for touch panels. A small bending radius (8 mm) was also demonstrated, which makes the proposed nanostructure applicable for flexible displays. Additionally, a fluoroalkyl coating was applied onto the moth-eye-like surface to improve the hydrophobicity (with a water contact angle >100°). Such a self-cleaning feature helps protect touch panels from dust and fingerprints. The proposed moth-eye-like AR film is expected to find widespread applications for sunlight readable flexible and curved displays.

Biomimetic ultra-broadband perfect absorbers optimised with reinforcement learning

“…This allows moths to have almost no light reflected from their eyes, which helps them to avoid predators and survive for longer. This kind of biomimetic structure has been utilised in applications such as smart phone antireflective coatings and increasing solar cell efficiency [23,24].…”

Perovskite/Silicon Tandem Solar Cells: From Detailed Balance Limit Calculations to Photon Management

“…Moth eye textures have been intensively used to improve the light incoupling in biological or optoelectronic devices and systems [98][99][100]. Moth eye textures act like broadband anti-reflection coatings, so that the incoupling of light can be distinctly improved and the reflection is reduced [101,102].…”

Tripling the Optical Efficiency of Color-Converted Micro-LED Displays with Funnel-Tube Array

“…This relatively low ACR originates from both light scattering by the phosphor particles and surface reflection. To improve ACR, anti-reflection (AR) coating with a surface reflection of about 0.2% could be employed [19]; results are shown in Figure 8b. When Lambient = 20,000 lux, the ACR could be improved to ~4:1.…”