OLED displays are very sensitive to oxygen and moisture, and the need to protect the displays is one of the major challenges of this next-generation display technology. First generation OLED displays were protected with a glass barrier, but glass is not easily flexible and so cannot be used in flexible OLEDs. Flexible OLEDs are today encapsulation with a thin-film encapsulation layer made from both organic and in-organic materials, and companies are searching for better OLED encapsulation technologies.
Graphene is the world's most impermeable material, and so the idea of using graphene as a barrier layer for OLED has been around for a while. In 2015 the UK launched a collaboration project called Gravia to develop graphene-based encapsulation, and the project's team has now reported their results.