Konica Minolta developed the world's most efficient OLED lighting panel - at 131 lm/W. The panel's emitting area is 15 square centimeters. KM says that now OLEDs are actually more efficient than consumer LEDs, and this is a major step forward for OLED lighting. We do not know the lifetime or any other features of this panel.
KM's previous panel featured 103 lm/W and the company incorporated three new technologies in the new panel that enabled them to reach the record efficiency. First up is a new phosphorescent blue material that improved the internal quantum efficiency. In addition, KM also implemented a new light extraction technology and a new "organic layer construction technique", based on optical simulation.
In August 2013 Panasonic Corporation announced a white OLED lighting panel that featured 114 lm/W - for a light-emitting area of 1 cm2. This was the previous record for OLED panel efficiency. The world's most efficient OLED device is NEC Lighting's 156 lm/W 2x2 mm panel developed in collaboration with Yamagata University in march 2013.
Next month Konica Minolta is also set to unveil the world's first color-tunable flexible OLED panels at the L+B 2014 trade show. The company currently offers rigid 45 lm/W Symfos OLED lighting sample kits (the panels are produced by Philips), and they are also involved with ink-jet printing technologies and transparent conductive films for OLED lighting panels.
