OPV - Page 5

Remember Daimler's Smart Forvision concept EV? That car has a transparent solar-panels on the roof, see-through dashboard and transparent OLEDs for internal lighting - on the roof of the car. We knew that Daimler was collaborating with BASF on this concept, and today BASF released a press release saying that indeed they developed those panels together with Philips.

The OLEDs are transparent when switched off, allowing for a clear view outside the vehicle, yet providing light only within the vehicle when switched on. The transparent OLED sandwich structure can be combined with equally transparent solar cells, as was demonstrated in the Smart Forvision. This development was achieved as part of a longstanding cooperation (since 2006) between BASF and Philips in the research and development of OLED modules.

nTact has joined the Holst Centre partner network. The two companies will jointly develop technologies to enable patterned deposition of homogeneous film layers on flexible foils. nTact's Selective Area Coating technology will hopefully be fast enough to be used in a roll-to-roll process using low-viscosity inks.

The Holst center says that this research program will be a necessary step towards large-volume manufacturing of OPV and OLED lighting devices on flexible substrates.

Daimler unveiled a new concept EV (the Smart Forvision). This concept car has a transparent solar-panels on the roof, see-through dashboard and transparent OLEDs for internal lighting. Daimler partnered with BASF on the plastic wheels, heat shield and new aluminum fiber paints.

We do not know whether BASF is also involved with the transparent OLED panels. In any case, these transparent OLEDs are hexagonal - which makes us think these might be made by Philips (the only company we know of that makes such shapes, and we've seen transparent OLED lighting panels from Philips since back in 2009, so they have the technology). Anyway, this new OLED-equipped car is great looking...

UK's Printable Electronics Technology Center (PETEC) recently launched their OLED/OPV prototyping line called LACE. The LACE is suitable for processing both air sensitive and non air sensitive material sets for the production of devices on a range of substrate sizes up to 200mm square.

LACE provides capability to materials companies, device designers and end users the opportunity to optimize their technologies within a fully automated, controlled environment. The system was built by Mbraun (who just recently released three videos showing their OLED processing equipment).

The Organic Electronics Association (OEA) recently released their latest OE brochure, to which they attached a very cool demonstrator - an organic solar cell (PV) powered flashlight:

What feels like a bit of cardboard actually contains a a roll-to-roll printed organic solar cell, a flexible lithium-ion battery and a printed electronic circuitry. And of course a small white LED. The association says that this can "give you the feeling" of the next generation of electronics: thin, lightweight, flexible and produced at a low cost.

Scientists from the National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi, India developed graphene based quantum dots (GQDs) blended with organic polymers. The new GQDs do not use any toxic metals such cadmium and lead used in today's quantum dots. The new devices actually perform better - less current loss and improved efficiency.

The researchers say that these GQDs may be used in organic solar cells and OLED displays - and indeed they fabricated a prototype OLED display with "good performance". Their work could lead to light-weight, flexible and cheap panels - used in large-area roll-to-roll manufacturing. The efficiency of the fabricated device is still low, and the researchers are working towards increased efficiency.

Back in 2006, we published an interview with Andy Hannah, Plextronics' president, CEO and co-founder. Andy agreed to do a follow-up interview to update us on Plextronics' business and technology.

Plextronics is a US-based company (established in 2002, as a spin-out from Carnegie Mellon University) that is developing technology that enables broad market commercialization of organic electronic devices - including OLEDs, plastic chips, polymer solar cells and organic sensors.

Q: Andy, can you give us a short introduction to your OLED technology?

Q: The benefits of OLEDs include, of course, being printable, low cost and demonstrating enhanced device performance. Plextronics’ technology plays a key part in achieving these benefits by reducing operating voltage in devices and thereby increasing lifetime and power efficiency.

Fluxim released version 3.2 of their SETFOS simulation software, used to study OLED and organic solar cells (OPVs). The new version includes several new improvements for OLED simulation:

• An enhanced nonlinear least-square fitting algorithm for general parameter extraction tasks, providing quantitative information about the quality of the fits:correlation coefficients for the fit parameters, confidence ellipses and intervals.
• An improved steady-state solver for the charge drift-diffusion equations, capable of simulating extended density of states for free and trapped carriers in multiple layers.
• A seamless coupling of electrons, excitons and photons in a single, comprehensive simulation software, taking into account the influence of the optical environment on the exciton dynamics.

Tera-Barrier Films announced today that Kisco has become a strategic investor in the company, and will be the exclusive distributor of their products. The funds will be used by Tera-Barrier to commercialize their moisture-resistant films for flexible OLEDs and organic solar cells. The company is already providing small-volume samples and expects to start large-scale manufacturing in the 'near future'.

Tera-Barrier says that defects such as pinholes, cracks and grain boundaries are common in thin oxide barrier films when fabricated onto plastic substrates. Current barrier technologies focus on reducing these defects by using alternate organic and inorganic multilayers coated on plastic. These multiple layers stagger corresponding pores in adjacent layers and create a ‘tortuous’ lengthy pathway for water and oxygen molecules, making it more difficult to travel through the plastic.

We had the good chance to talk with Gerd Guenther, Novaled's Chief Marketing Officer. He was kind enough to answer a few of our questions, and give us some information and updates from Novaled.

Gerd, thanks for your time. Can you explain Novaled's business model to us?

When Novaled started as a spin-off from Fraunhofer and Technical University of Dresden in 2001 with just 3 people, the idea was to market its doping technology Novaled PIN OLED^®) along with its proprietary materials. Today, quite an impressive number of well known display and lighting makers are customers of Novaled. That means we offer IP, licensing and technology transfer packages but also R&D contracting as well as trainings.

Novaled 15x15 cm white OLED