Researchers in South Korea have developed a major breakthrough in stretchable screen technology by borrowing ideas from an ancient Japanese art.
A team from POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) has created the world’s first stretchable display that can expand evenly across all its pixels—up to twice its original size—without distorting the image or losing quality.
Their work was featured on the back cover of the prestigious journal Advanced Functional Materials.
Stretchable screens are the next big step in display technology, following foldable and bendable screens.
These ultra-flexible displays could one day be used to create electronic skin or wearable devices that feel and move like real human skin.
But until now, there’s been a big problem: when stretched, different parts of a flexible screen stretch at different rates. This causes uneven colors, blurry images, and poor performance.
Most current flexible screens rely on hard parts connected by wavy wires. While that design can stretch a little, it limits how much the screen can expand and often lowers the quality.
The better option is to use soft, rubbery materials that stretch naturally.
However, these types of materials usually stretch unevenly, especially when arranged in multiple pixels.
To solve this, the POSTECH team took inspiration from kirigami, the Japanese art of cutting paper. They added tiny, precise cuts to the surface of the rubbery display material.
These cuts help spread out the stretching force more evenly, so every part of the screen expands the same way. This allowed them to stretch a 7×7 pixel display by up to 200%, with all the pixels staying uniform and intact.
The researchers also added small “strain stoppers”—rigid spots in the material—to help guide and limit the stretch in certain directions. This gave them even more control over how the screen behaved when pulled or bent.
To bring the display to life, they used a special stretchy material called a chiral liquid crystal elastomer (CLCE). This material not only stretches easily, but also changes color when stretched.
It can even hide secret patterns that only appear when the screen is stretched, making it useful for security and anti-counterfeiting. With the right filter, these displays can also show different patterns depending on the viewing angle, adding another layer of optical protection.
This new approach opens up exciting possibilities for wearable tech, flexible displays, and secure devices.
According to Professor Su Seok Choi, who led the project, solving the problem of uneven stretching is a major step forward in making stretchable screens truly practical for everyday use.
