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Zou et al. Soft Sci 2024;4:19 Soft Science
DOI: 10.20517/ss.2024.13

Perspective Open Access

Shape-deformable Micro-LEDs for advanced

displays and healthcare

Shenghan Zou, Yuzhi Li, Zheng Gong *
Institute of Semiconductors, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, Guangdong, China.

* Correspondence to: Prof. Zheng Gong, Institute of Semiconductors, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, NO. 363 Changxing
Road, Guangzhou 510650, Guangdong, China. E-mail: zheng_gong@gdisit.com

How to cite this article: Zou S, Li Y, Gong Z. Shape-deformable Micro-LEDs for advanced displays and healthcare. Soft Sci
2024;4:19. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/ss.2024.13

Received: 24 Mar 2024 First Decision: 17 Apr 2024 Revised: 19 Apr 2024 Accepted: 29 Apr 2024 Published: 21 May 2024

Academic Editor: Sungkyu Park Copy Editor: Dong-Li Li Production Editor: Dong-Li Li

Abstract
Recently, flexible/stretchable micro-scale light-emitting diodes (LEDs), with dimensions significantly smaller than
conventional diodes used for illuminations, have emerged for promising applications in areas such as deformable
displays, wearable devices for healthcare, etc. For such applications, these devices must have some unusual
features that common inorganic LEDs do not intrinsically own, including conformability, biocompatibility,
mechanical flexibility, etc. This Perspective focuses on summarizing the most recent progress in developing such
flexible emitters based on inorganic semiconductors, followed by reviewing their potential applications. Finally,
major challenges and future research directions of deformable micro-scale LEDs are presented.
Keywords: Micro-LED, conformability, flexibility, healthcare, foldable display

INTRODUCTION
Micro-scale light-emitting diode (Micro-LED) displays made from p-n junctions of III-V inorganic
epitaxial semiconductors, such as gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminum gallium indium phosphide
(AlGaInP), have stood out as a competing technology over organic LED (OLED) and liquid crystal displays
[1-7]
(LCD) . Despite the reduced physical dimensions into a regime of a few tens of microns or below, they
exhibit unusual properties such as fast switching speed, high brightness, long lifetime, and large current
[8]
withstanding capability , making them particularly suited for low-power consumption and high-resolution
display. Indeed, significant progress of Micro-LEDs has been made in areas such as smart watches, VR/AR,

© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
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