Roll-to-roll - Page 7

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.

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.

The Fast2Light project aims to develop novel, cost-effective, high-throughput, roll-to-roll, large area deposition processes for fabricating P-OLEDs for lighting. The project also aims to minimize the potential environmental impact at this product design stage, as well as analyse in depth the repercussions throughout the life cycle, including the end of useful life stage.

Spain's Gaiker-I4K announced a research activity as part of Fast2Light that will study the identification, development and adaptation of innovative treatment processes for OLED, taking into account both mechanical and chemical recycling technologies. Gaiker-I4K will also carry out a life cycle analysis of the OLEDs developed during the project. The research will be concluded in August 2011.

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

Roth & Rau MicroSystems will partner with the Holst Centre on barriers for flexible electronics. The two companies will develop and install a roll-to-roll PECVD deposition tool in the Holst Centre. This will be used for flexible OLED lighting and organic solar cells.

The Holst Centre will cooperate with Coherent on flexible electronics. The Holst Centre will install a short-pulse (picosecond) laser source in the electronic foils processing equipment to be used for high-precision and low-defect laser ablation in sheet-to-sheet production of OLED and OPV devices.

The potential of the laser to comply with short processing times allows the transition towards roll-to-roll at a later stage in the collaboration which is important for low cost production. Coherent intends to take the results of the application and use it to expand its knowledge in flexible electronics manufacturing.

GE and Konica Minolta announced that they have achieved a "major breakthrough" in their white OLEDs: an efficient 56Lm/w flexible white OLED that is made using solution-coatable materials in a roll-to-roll printing process. The materials have "commercially viable lifetime" (we do not know exactly what they mean by that).

GE and Konica Minolta flexible desk lamp prototype

GE and Konica Minolta plan to introduce their flexible OLED lighting products next year (2011), and have already displayed some early prototype lamps (one of which is shown above). They are working together since 2007. KM hopes to see $1 billion in OLED Lighting sales by 2018. KM has licensed OLED IP from UDC.

Novaled is demonstrating OLEDs made on metal (steel) substrates that are only 0.7mm thick. Those substrates require specific top-emitting OLED structures, and Novaled has developed dedicated ITO-free OLEDs that has a similar performance to standard bottom-emission OLEDs. Novaled is also working on thin-film encapsulation that will enable flexible OLEDs.

Novaled say that metal substrates has several advantages: they will enable flexibility, they have good heat conduction properties, and the "open the roadmap" towards low-cost roll-to-roll production. They also look great and are very robust.

The Holst Centre and NeoDec will partner on metallic inks for flexible electronics. NeoDec's conductive ink technology is a complementary technology to the competences of Holst Centre and its industrial
partners and opens new routes to enable roll-to-roll manufacturing of flexible electronic devices such as OLED lighting foils. The partnership will initially run for 2 years, and NeoDec's technology will be further developed within the Holst Centre.

Printed structures from the Holst Centre