Disclosure of Invention
The present invention aims to alleviate or even solve at least one of the above technical problems to at least some extent.
In view of the above, in one aspect of the present invention, an organic light emitting display panel is provided. The organic light emitting display panel includes: a substrate; an organic light emitting diode on the substrate, and a pixel circuit for controlling the organic light emitting diode; the pixel circuit comprises a first thin film transistor, the sensing circuit comprises a second thin film transistor, an active layer of the first thin film transistor and an active layer of the second thin film transistor are arranged on the same layer, and a light emitting layer of the organic light emitting diode and a piezoelectric layer of the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor are arranged on the same layer. Therefore, the sensor with the fingerprint identification function and the sensing circuit can be simply and conveniently integrated in the organic light-emitting display panel, and the thickness of the display panel with the fingerprint identification function is favorably reduced.
According to the embodiment of the present invention, the gate of the first thin film transistor is located on a side of the active layer of the first thin film transistor away from the substrate, and the gate of the second thin film transistor is located on a side of the active layer of the second thin film transistor close to the substrate.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor includes a transmitting electrode and a receiving electrode, the receiving electrode is located on a side of the piezoelectric layer facing the substrate and connected to the second thin film transistor, the transmitting electrode is located on a side of the piezoelectric layer away from the substrate, and the transmitting electrode and the receiving electrode are configured to be capable of realizing transmission and reception of an ultrasonic fingerprint signal by using the same piezoelectric layer through timing control, a source and a drain of the first thin film transistor and a source and a drain of the second thin film transistor are both disposed in the same layer and connected to an active layer through a via, the receiving electrode is located on a side of the source and the drain away from the substrate, and a passivation layer is located between the receiving electrode and the source. Therefore, the ultrasonic signal can be transmitted and the fingerprint and identification signal can be received by using the same piezoelectric layer, and the structure of the display panel is further simplified.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the pixel circuit includes a storage capacitor, the storage capacitor includes a first electrode, an insulating layer, and a second electrode disposed on the same layer as the gate of the first thin film transistor, the second electrode and the insulating layer are disposed on a side of the first electrode away from the substrate, and the insulating layer is disposed between the first electrode and the second electrode along a direction perpendicular to a plane of the substrate, where the second electrode is connected to the emitter electrode through a peripheral connection region. Thereby, the second electrode of the storage capacitor can be utilized as a polarizing layer of the piezoelectric layer for polarizing the piezoelectric material at the time of preparing the piezoelectric sensor to obtain piezoelectric characteristics. And the second electrode is connected with the generating electrode and can also be used as a low-square resistance layer of the emitting electrode, which is beneficial to reducing the emitting resistance, thereby further improving the performance of the display panel.
According to the embodiment of the invention, one side of the light-emitting layer, which is far away from the substrate, is provided with the first light-emitting electrode, and the first light-emitting electrode and the emitting electrode are arranged in the same layer and the same material. This is advantageous in further simplifying the structure of the display panel.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is further included a pixel defining structure defining a plurality of areas for accommodating the light emitting layer and a plurality of areas for accommodating the piezoelectric layer, or the piezoelectric layer defining a plurality of areas for accommodating the light emitting layer, the piezoelectric layer being formed of an insulating material having piezoelectric properties. This is advantageous in further simplifying the structure of the display panel.
In still another aspect of the present invention, the present invention provides a method of manufacturing the organic light emitting display panel described above, the method comprising: forming a pixel circuit for controlling an organic light emitting diode and a sensing circuit connected with a piezoelectric fingerprint sensor on a substrate, wherein the pixel circuit comprises a first thin film transistor, the sensing circuit comprises a second thin film transistor, and an active layer of the first thin film transistor and an active layer of the second thin film transistor are arranged on the same layer; and forming a light emitting layer of the organic light emitting diode and a piezoelectric fingerprint sensor, and arranging the light emitting layer of the organic light emitting diode and the piezoelectric layer of the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor in the same layer. Thus, a display panel having a fingerprint recognition function can be obtained easily.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, forming the light emitting diode and the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor includes: and forming a pixel defining structure on the side of the first thin film transistor and the second thin film transistor far away from the substrate, and forming the light emitting layer and the piezoelectric layer in an area defined by the pixel defining structure, wherein the polarization treatment is performed on the material for forming the piezoelectric layer after the light emitting layer is formed. Thus, the process for manufacturing the display panel can be further simplified.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, forming the light emitting diode and the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor includes: and forming a piezoelectric material on the side of the first thin film transistor and the second thin film transistor far away from the substrate, and performing patterning treatment on the piezoelectric material to form a region for accommodating the light emitting layer. Thus, the process for manufacturing the display panel can be further simplified.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, after forming the piezoelectric layer and the light emitting layer, the method further includes: and evaporating a metal layer on the piezoelectric layer and the side of the light-emitting layer far away from the substrate to form a common emission electrode of the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor and a first light-emitting electrode of the light-emitting layer. Thus, the process for manufacturing the display panel can be further simplified.
Detailed Description
Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like or similar reference numerals refer to the same or similar elements or elements having the same or similar function throughout. The embodiments described below with reference to the accompanying drawings are illustrative only for the purpose of explaining the present invention, and are not to be construed as limiting the present invention.
In one aspect of the present invention, an organic light emitting display panel is provided. Referring to fig. 1, the organic light emitting display panel includes: a substrate 100, and an organic light emitting diode and a pixel circuit for controlling the organic light emitting diode on the substrate 100. The substrate 100 also has a piezoelectric fingerprint sensor thereon, and a sensing circuit electrically connected to the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor. The pixel circuit comprises a first thin film transistor, the sensing circuit comprises a second thin film transistor, an active layer 10 of the first thin film transistor and an active layer 11 of the second thin film transistor are arranged on the same layer, and a light emitting layer 330 of the organic light emitting diode and a piezoelectric layer 420 of the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor are arranged on the same layer. Therefore, the sensor with the fingerprint identification function and the sensing circuit can be simply and conveniently integrated in the organic light-emitting display panel, and the thickness of the display panel with the fingerprint identification function is favorably reduced.
It is well known to those skilled in the art that in order to control the light emission of each sub-pixel in the organic light emitting display panel, the pixel circuit of the OLED generally has a more complex structure, such as a structure of 6T1C (having 6 thin film transistors and a storage capacitor). Similarly, for the fingerprint sensor, the sensing signal is required to be output in order, and therefore the sensing circuit is also required to have a plurality of thin film transistors for control. Both of them have complicated circuit structures, and the current display device has high requirements for the pixels of the OLED, and if a more accurate fingerprint identification is to be realized, the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor also needs to have a plurality of sensing units (up to 300PPI if necessary) capable of outputting signals independently. Therefore, in a limited pixel area, the existing OLED laminated structure is adopted, and the arrangement of a plurality of devices and the leading-out of routing lines are difficult to realize by the existing glass-based process capability. Therefore, specific structures of the pixel circuit and the sensing circuit need to be designed. According to the organic light-emitting display panel provided by the embodiment of the invention, through designing the pixel circuit, the sensing circuit, the organic light-emitting diode and the piezoelectric sensor in the panel, the ultrasonic fingerprint identification device can be integrated in the OLED screen, the thickness of the display module is not increased obviously, and the detection circuit can detect the signal quantity more easily: compare fingerprint identification module laminating in the screen below with traditional, supersound fingerprint identification device is integrated in the OLED screen, and ultrasonic signal need not to pass through whole display screen, can reduce the decay of signal.
Hereinafter, a detailed description will be given of a specific structure of the organic light emitting display panel according to a specific embodiment of the present invention:
as described above, the pixel circuit and the sensor circuit may each have a plurality of thin film transistors. The terms "first thin film transistor" and "second thin film transistor" are used only for distinguishing thin film transistors in the circuits for two functions, and cannot be understood as a limitation on the number of thin film transistors in the pixel circuit and the sensor circuit, or a designation of a specific thin film transistor in the pixel circuit and the sensor circuit: as long as the active layer of at least one of the plurality of thin film transistors in the pixel circuit and the active layer of at least one of the plurality of thin film transistors in the sensing circuit are disposed at the same layer. As will be understood by those skilled in the art, the thin film transistor has an active layer, a gate electrode, a source electrode, and a drain electrode, and in order to ensure the performance of the thin film transistor and to insulate metal layers from each other, it is necessary to have structures such as a planarization layer, a passivation layer, an insulating layer, and the like. In order to further simplify the structure of the organic light emitting display panel, the structures such as the planarization layer, the passivation layer, and the insulating layer may be shared by the two thin film transistors by designing the structures and positions of the first thin film transistor and the second thin film transistor. Specifically, before the preparation of the thin film transistor, a buffer layer is usually required to be formed on the substrate 100, and when the active layer 10 of the first thin film transistor and the active layer 11 of the second thin film transistor are disposed on the same layer, the buffer layers 210 of the two thin film transistors can also be shared. In addition, the second gate insulating layer 230, the third gate insulating layer 240, and the interlayer insulating layer 250 on the side of the active layer away from the substrate 100 may be shared by two thin film transistors.
According to the embodiment of the invention, the first thin film transistor adopts a top gate structure, and the second thin film transistor adopts a bottom gate structure. Due to the ultrasonic waveFingerprint identification device requires sensing circuit with higher Vth(threshold voltage) uniformity, the doping of the active layer of the bottom gate structure is controlled by adopting an independent mask plate, and the ion doping of the top gate structure is carried out by adopting gate metal as a mask during preparation. Therefore, the bottom gate type thin film transistor can better control VthUniformity of the composition. Specifically, referring to fig. 1, the gate electrode 20 of the first thin film transistor is located on a side of the active layer 10 of the first thin film transistor away from the substrate 100, and the gate electrode 21 of the second thin film transistor is located on a side of the active layer 11 of the second thin film transistor toward the substrate 100. Since the gate electrode 21 is provided between the substrate 100 and the active layer, a metal layer for forming the gate electrode 21, and the first gate insulating layer 220 need to be provided on the substrate 100. Further, the active layer 10 of the first thin film transistor and the active layer 11 of the second thin film transistor may be formed on a side of the first gate insulating layer 220 away from the substrate 100, and both may be formed using polysilicon, so that they may be obtained by the same patterning process, thereby facilitating simplification of the manufacturing steps of the display panel. Similarly, since the active layers of the two tfts are located in the same layer, the drain 30 of the first tft, the drain 31 of the second tft, the source 40 of the first tft, and the source 41 of the second tft can also be obtained by a patterning process using the same layer of metal, and then connected to the active layer through vias with the same depth. Thereby, the production process can be further simplified. Since the source and drain electrodes of the first thin film transistor and the source and drain electrodes of the second thin film transistor are formed by the same metal layer, the passivation layer 260 and the planarization layer 270 of the two thin film transistors on the side of the active layer away from the substrate 100 can also be shared.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor may include a transmitting electrode 430 and a receiving electrode 410, the receiving electrode 410 is located on a side of the piezoelectric layer 420 facing the substrate 100 and connected to the second thin film transistor. The emitter electrode 430 is located on a side of the piezoelectric layer 420 remote from the substrate 100. The piezoelectric fingerprint sensor can utilize a piezoelectric material (a piezoelectric layer) as a transmitter, and transmits ultrasonic waves with specific frequency through inverse piezoelectric effect (the piezoelectric material is vibrated by applying alternating voltage in a specific direction), wherein the ultrasonic waves generate energy attenuation or phase change due to contact with an object to be detected in the transmission process, and generate positive piezoelectric effect (electric charge is generated under the pressure effect of the ultrasonic waves) when reaching the piezoelectric material serving as a receiver, so that the energy or phase change of the ultrasonic waves is determined to realize sensing detection. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor may utilize the same piezoelectric layer as the transmitter and the receiver, i.e. the transmitting electrode and the receiving electrode are configured to enable transmission and reception of the ultrasonic fingerprint signal by the same piezoelectric layer through timing control. The first thin film transistor of the sensing circuit is connected to the receiving electrode 410 through a via hole. The passivation layer 260 may also serve as an insulating layer between the drain electrode 31 of the second thin film transistor and the receiving electrode 410 at this time. Therefore, the ultrasonic signal can be transmitted and the fingerprint and identification signal can be received by using the same piezoelectric layer, and the structure of the display panel is further simplified.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, referring to fig. 2, the pixel circuit may further include a storage capacitor. The storage capacitor includes a first electrode 50, an insulating layer and a second electrode 60 disposed on the same layer as the gate 20 of the first thin film transistor, the second electrode and the insulating layer are disposed on a side of the first electrode 50 away from the substrate 100, and the insulating layer is disposed between the first electrode and the second electrode along a direction perpendicular to a plane of the substrate. Thus, the first electrode 50 can be formed simultaneously with the formation of the gate electrode 20 of the first thin film transistor. The insulating layer may function as a third gate insulating layer 240 without an additional provision. In addition, since the display panel is also integrated with a piezoelectric fingerprint sensor, and those skilled in the art are familiar with that, the material of the piezoelectric layer needs to be processed by polarization to be able to have piezoelectric properties. Therefore, the first electrode 50 here may also serve as a polarizing layer of the piezoelectric material. Meanwhile, since the sheet resistance of the electrode material used as the capacitor is small, the low-sheet resistance layer that can use the first electrode 50 as the emitter electrode is connected to the emitter electrode (usually formed of Ag or the like) through the peripheral PAD region (peripheral connection region) to reduce the resistance of the emitter electrode.
According to the embodiment of the invention, since the light emitting layer 330 and the piezoelectric layer 420 are disposed in the same layer, the side of the light emitting layer 330 away from the substrate 100 has the first light emitting electrode 320, and the first light emitting electrode 320 and the emitting electrode 430 are disposed in the same layer and the same material. This is advantageous in further simplifying the structure of the display panel. As will be understood by those skilled in the art, the organic light emitting diode needs to be connected to the pixel circuit in order to control the light emission of the organic light emitting diode using the pixel circuit. Taking the structure shown in fig. 2 as an example, the second light emitting electrode 310 is required to be connected to the source electrode 40 of the first thin film transistor. Since the second light emitting electrode 310 and the source electrode 40 of the first thin film transistor have a multi-layered insulating structure therebetween, if a via hole is directly formed to be connected to each other, the via hole needs to have a large depth. The receiving metal 411 may be formed at the same time when the receiving electrode 410 is formed, and first connected to the source 40 of the first thin film transistor using the receiving metal 411, and then connected to the receiving metal 411 by a via hole in the second light emitting electrode 310. Since the receiving electrode 410 also needs to be connected to the drain electrode 31 of the second thin film transistor through a via hole, and the source electrode 40 of the first thin film transistor and the drain electrode 31 of the second thin film transistor are disposed on the same layer, the receiving metal 411 and the via hole connected to the source electrode 40 of the first thin film transistor can be simultaneously formed when the receiving electrode 410 and the via hole connected to the drain electrode 31 of the second thin film transistor are formed.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the display panel may further include a pixel defining structure 340. The pixel defining structure defines a plurality of regions for receiving the light emitting layer and a plurality of regions for receiving the piezoelectric layer. As can be understood by those skilled in the art, in order to further improve the performance of the display panel, the display panel may further have at least one of the following structures: a film package structure 600, a sealant 700, and a top film layer 800. A second passivation layer 900 may also be provided on the side of the first light emitting electrode 320 remote from the substrate. The structure can have the same characteristics and advantages with the corresponding structure in the traditional display panel without the integrated ultrasonic fingerprint identification sensor, and the description is omitted.
Alternatively, according to other embodiments of the present invention, referring to fig. 3, a metal layer 500 may also be used, multiplexed as the first electrode of the organic light emitting diode, and the transmitting electrode of the fingerprint piezoelectric sensor. Thus, the structure of the display panel can be further simplified. Similarly, referring to fig. 4, since the piezoelectric layer is formed of an insulating material, the piezoelectric layer 420 can also be multiplexed into a pixel defining structure: the piezoelectric layer may be adapted to define a plurality of regions for receiving said light emitting layer. This is advantageous in further simplifying the structure of the display panel. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that when the piezoelectric layers are multiplexed into a pixel-defining structure, the first electrode of the organic light emitting diode and the emitter electrode of the fingerprint piezoelectric sensor may or may not be shared (as shown in figure 4). When the first electrode of the organic light emitting diode is shared with the emitting electrode of the fingerprint piezoelectric sensor, the piezoelectric layer can be multiplexed into the pixel defining structure, and the pixel defining structure can also be arranged independently.
In still another aspect of the present invention, the present invention provides a method of manufacturing the organic light emitting display panel described above. Referring to fig. 5, the method includes:
s100: forming a pixel circuit and a sensing circuit on a substrate
According to the embodiment of the present invention, since the organic light emitting display panel prepared by the method is described above, the organic light emitting display panel has the same structure as the organic light emitting display panel described above, and thus, the description thereof is omitted. Since a plurality of structures in the pixel circuit and the sensor circuit are common or formed of the same material in the same layer, a multilayer structure for constituting the pixel circuit and the sensor circuit is first formed in sequence on the substrate in this step.
S200: forming light emitting diodes and piezoelectric fingerprint sensors
According to an embodiment of the invention, the light emitting diode and the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor are formed in this step, and the light emitting layer of the organic light emitting diode and the piezoelectric layer of the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor are arranged in the same layer. Thus, a display panel having a fingerprint recognition function can be obtained easily.
According to some embodiments of the present invention, before forming the light emitting layer of the organic light emitting diode and the piezoelectric layer of the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor, a pixel defining structure may be formed in advance on a side of the first thin film transistor and the second thin film transistor away from the substrate, and the light emitting layer and the piezoelectric layer may be formed in an area defined by the pixel defining structure. The structure of the resulting display panel may be that shown in fig. 2 or fig. 3.
The specific method of forming the piezoelectric material and forming the light emitting layer is not particularly limited, and for example, the piezoelectric material (which may be PVDF) may be formed by deposition, and the light emitting material may be formed by evaporation. The order of forming the piezoelectric material and forming the luminescent material may be interchanged. The material for forming the piezoelectric layer may be subjected to polarization treatment after the light-emitting layer is formed, or the piezoelectric material may be subjected to polarization treatment before the light-emitting layer is formed.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, after the forming the piezoelectric layer and the light emitting layer, the method may further include: and evaporating a metal layer on one side of the piezoelectric layer and the light-emitting layer, which is far away from the substrate, so as to form a common emission electrode of the piezoelectric fingerprint sensor and a first light-emitting electrode of the light-emitting layer. Thus, the process for manufacturing the display panel can be further simplified. The structure of the display panel formed may be that shown in fig. 3 or fig. 4.
In the description of the present invention, the terms "upper", "lower", and the like indicate orientations or positional relationships based on those shown in the drawings, and are only for convenience of describing the present invention but do not require that the present invention must be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and thus, should not be construed as limiting the present invention. In addition, it should be noted that the terms "first" and "second" in this specification are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance or implying any number of technical features indicated.
In the description herein, references to the description of "one embodiment," "another embodiment," etc., mean that a particular feature, structure, material, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the invention. In this specification, the schematic representations of the terms used above are not necessarily intended to refer to the same embodiment or example. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, materials, or characteristics described may be combined in any suitable manner in any one or more embodiments or examples. Furthermore, various embodiments or examples and features of different embodiments or examples described in this specification can be combined and combined by one skilled in the art without contradiction.
Although embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described above, it is understood that the above embodiments are exemplary and should not be construed as limiting the present invention, and that variations, modifications, substitutions and alterations can be made to the above embodiments by those of ordinary skill in the art within the scope of the present invention.