Imagine a wearable patch that tracks your vital signs through changes in the color display, or shipping labels that light up to indicate changes in temperature or sterility of food items.

These are among the potential uses for a new flexible display created by UBC researchers and announced recently in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

“This device is capable of fast, realtime and reversible color change,” says researcher Claire Preston, who developed the device as part of her master’s in electrical and computer engineering at UBC. “It can stretch up to 30 percent without losing performance. It uses a color-changing technology that can be used for visual monitoring. And it is relatively cheap to manufacture.”