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The desire for foldable display seems to be heading toward its zenith. However, its mass production is still impeded by a few technical challenges, specifically, development of flexible cover window films. This invited paper demonstrates innovative flexible hard coating (Flex9H®) for foldable display cover plastic films, which exhibits glass-like pencil hardness, plastic-like flexibility and excellent optical transparency simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high performance ladder-like structured methacrylate siloxane hybrid material (LMSH) was fabricated via simple hydrolytic sol–gel reaction, followed by free-radical polymerization. A structurally ordered siloxane backbone, the ladder-like structure, which is an essential factor for high performance, could be achieved by a short period of sol–gel reaction in only 4 h. This results in superior optical (Transmittance > 90% at 550 nm), thermal (T5 wt % decomposition > 400 ℃ ), mechanical properties(elastic recovery = 0.86, hardness = 0.6 GPa) compared to the random- and even commercialized cage-structured silsesquioxane, which also has ordered structure. It was investigated that the fabricated ladder-like structured MSH showed the highest overall density of organic/inorganic co-networks that are originated from highly ordered siloxane network, along with high conversion rate of polymerizable methacrylate groups. Our findings suggest a potential of the ladder-like structured MSH as a powerful alternative for the methacrylate polysilsesquioxane, which can be applied to thermally stable and flexible optical coatings, even with an easier and simpler preparation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although foldable electronic devices have been commercially available for some time now, flexible protective coating with sufficient reliability is yet to be achieved. The integration of polyurethane acrylate and an organic-inorganic (O-I) siloxane hybrid is proposed in this study as a promising protective coating, where both high strength and stretchability could be achieved to allow for the needed reliability for foldable electronics. In this work, a urethane-methacrylate siloxane hybrid (U-MSH) composite was fabricated by a physical blending of methacrylate-functionalized oligosiloxane and acrylate terminated urethane prepolymer followed by curing. The U-MSH composite demonstrates excellent performance in terms of optical (e.g., transmittance, Abbe number, UV stability) and mechanical properties (e.g., resilience under compression, tension, and scratch). These outstanding properties can be attributed to the synergetic effect of the combined polyurethane acrylate and O-I siloxane hybrid. Excellent reliability of U-MSH coating film is successfully demonstrated using an outward-bending test, suggesting that U-MSH has great potential as a protective material for flexible electronics. • UV-curable acrylate-terminated urethane prepolymer was synthesized via urethane formation reaction. • Methacrylate-functionalized siloxane resin was synthesized via sol-gel reaction. • Highly transparent urethane-methacrylate siloxane hybrid composite (U-MSH) material was successfully fabricated. • U-MSH exhibited the excellent performance in tensile, compression and scratch tests. • U-MSH coating film is demonstrated without shrinkage/cracking and endured outward-bending test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]