Professor Jinseong Park of Hanyang University has been selected as the recipient of the 2024 Merck Award of Honor. The Young Scientist Award was given to Professor Jeong Seung-jun of Korea University.

Merck Korea (CEO Dr. Woo-Kyu Kim), the Korean subsidiary of leading science and technology company Merck, participated in the 'International meeting on Information display 2024 (IMID 2024)' held at Jeju International Convention Center from August 20 to 23 under the theme of 'Share Display, Share Life'.

During IMID 2024, Dr. Richard Harding, Head of AR/VR Business, will share insights on the topic of 'Recent Advances in Optical Materials Towards Small Form Factor, Fully Immersive AR Headsets' on August 20, announce the winners of the Merck Awards and award them on August 21, and hold a 'Merck Science Connect' lecture on the afternoon of August 22, inviting experts from the display industry to review trends and share insights.

Dr. Woo-Kyu Kim said, “The display market is recovering, and the future display industry will grow further along with AR and VR.” He added, “For the past 35 years, Merck Korea has been providing Materials Intelligence TM that enables future technology trends in the display industry at the center of innovation and development in the domestic display industry through continuous investment in the liquid crystal and OLED fields, and is striving to realize light through research and development of various products, including OLED. “We will also be introducing technologies and insights into future automotive displays at this year’s Merck Science Connect,” he emphasized.

The Merck Award was established in 2004 as a technical paper award at IMID, hosted by the Korean Information Display Society (KIDS), to honor outstanding scientific achievements in display technology, the 100th anniversary of Merck's liquid crystal research. In 2006, it was expanded to the Merck Young Scientist Award, and starting with the 10th Merck Award ceremony in 2013, which marked the 125th anniversary of the discovery of liquid crystals, the award details and prizes were changed from paper awards to academic awards in collaboration with KIDS, marking a turning point for the development of the Korean display industry. This year is even more meaningful as it marks the 120th anniversary of Merck's liquid crystal research.

This year's Merck Award winner is Professor Jinseong Park of Hanyang University, a pioneer in the new process technology Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD).

Since first starting SEED research for application of IGZO-based AMOLED panels, Professor Park has been conducting leading research with domestic and foreign companies for approximately 15 years using ALD on key challenges faced by next-generation displays (ALD thin film encapsulation materials and process technology for high-reliability automotive OLED panels, research on ALD oxide semiconductor materials/devices to overcome ultra-high mobility-reliability limits, research on multi-functional ALD thin film materials for next-generation micro displays, etc.), and is evaluated to have contributed to the technological advancement of AMOLED and the training of key personnel.

He has published more than 250 papers on semiconductor-display applications using ALD so far, and has also had a significant academic influence, with more than 400 patents applied for and registered, approximately 21,600 citations based on Scala Google searches, and an H index of 61. This award is especially meaningful because it is Professor Park's first major award in 10 years since he received the Merck Young Scientist Award in 2014 in recognition of his contributions to leading oxide semiconductor thin film transistor research and early industrialization.

Professor Park said in his acceptance speech, “It is a great honor to receive the Merck Main Award after 10 years, and we will continue our research and nurturing future generations to become a global leader in the materials, equipment, and components fields of ALD technology.”

The winner of the Merck Young Scientist Award is Professor Seungjun Jeong of Korea University.

Professor Jeong is an expert in printing process and flexible platform technology for implementing free-form displays. Professor Jeong has developed low-temperature process and interface control technology for implementing displays on flexible platforms, which have contributed greatly to performance improvement. In particular, he developed a technology to produce organic thin-film transistors with a channel length of less than 10㎛ using a full inkjet printing process, and reported an interface control technology that can greatly improve electrical performance, contributing to the development of flexible display technology based on the printing process.

Professor Jeong's research achievements have already been proven to be excellent several times. Examples include the development of a technology to composite mechanical metamaterials with stretchable substrate materials to resolve obstacles to implementing stretchable displays and the development of a technology to utilize wiring materials that can minimize resistance changes when stretched.

In addition, Professor Jeong has published more than 80 international academic papers in top academic journals in the fields of displays and nanomaterials, and has been consistently presenting his research results at international academic conferences in the field of displays, widely publicizing his achievements internationally.

Professor Jeong said, “I am truly delighted and honored to receive the Young Scientist Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the display field,” and added, “I will continue to work hard to contribute to the development of display technology in our country and to implement freeform displays.”

The 6th 'Merck Science Connect' will be held from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM on August 22nd at Jeju International Convention Center Oral Room 35.

The theme is 'Shaping the Future of Automotive Display' and we plan to share insights on the direction of development of the display industry within the automotive market.

Speakers include Omdia's Heo Moo-yeol, Hyundai Mobis' HUD Optical Cell Director Yoon Chan-young, and Merck's Korea OLED Research Institute Director Kim Jun-ho.

In addition, Professor Jinseong Park of Hanyang University, winner of the 2024 Merck Award, will give a presentation on the use of ALD for new display applications.

If you are unable to attend the event on-site, you can watch 'Merck Science Connect' on YouTube. In the future, you can watch it online for a certain period of time after the International Information Display Conference ends on the 23rd.