Polar OLED is a new company, spun off from the University of Hull in the UK. Polar is working on "liquid crystal based polymer OLED materials", and are currently shipping sample materials for research. Polar say that their materials will be far more cost effective to manufacture than what's available today. These materials are neither Small-Molecule nor Polymer based.

Polar were kind enough to answer a few of our questions:

Q: Are your materials fluorescent or phosphorescent?

The Polar OLED materials can be described as fluorescent.

The Samsung Moment is now available for the US Sprint network. The phone has a 3.2" touch OLED, full QWERTY slider, 3.2mp camera, microSDHC slot, Wi-Fi and GPS. It runs Google's Android OS (on a 800Mhz processor). It costs 179.99$ with a two-year contract.

NEMO (NEw Materials for OLEDs) is a new EU project focusing on new emitting systems based on soluble small molecules with long lifetime and efficiency. NEMO is led be four companies (coordinated by Merck) and seven research and academic institutions (including the Fraunhofer institute). The project is scheduled to last for 2.5 years, and is funded by the German government with 32 million euros.

GE is working since 2003 on roll-to-roll OLED printing (of flexible and transparent OLED lighting panels). Dr Yan from GE says that in 2007, they had fairly high defects, around 65% yield. Today GE says that their yield is between 90%-95%.

One of the biggest issues GE is tackling is the flexible barrier layer to protect the OLED devices. GE has developed an "Ultra High Barrier" (UHB) by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The performance that has been achieved is low 10-5g/m2/day, with good transparency and adhesion.

Dr Yan says that roll-to-roll organic printing is real, and OLED lighting is getting closer. OLEDs are still around 15 times more expansive than conventional lighting, but the price will drop in time, and OLEDs will get cheaper than LEDs because of roll-to-roll printing and potentially cheaper materials.

IDTechEx believes that it will take between 5 to 10 years for OLEDs to become cost effective. But even before that OLEDs can be used in high-value products and niches.