Back in 2011 the University of Florida announced a new organic-TFT backplane technology called CN-VOLET, which is especially suited for OLED panels. Earlier in 2010, the University spun-off a company called nVerPix to commercialize this technology, with funding from Nanoholdings. Now nVerPix sent us some information and updates regarding their technology and business as they are seeking to raise funds (Round A).
CN-VFET is a new carbon nanotube based transistor technology that can conduct electricity about a 1000 times faster than current silicon-based TFTs. The basic transistor design is called CN-VFET (which can be used for logic and memory applications). When they combine the CN-VFET with the OLED stack they call it a CN-VOLET (CN Vertical OLET).
According to nVerPix, CN-VOLETS enables cheaper production, higher contrast and extends the OLED lifetime. While the company targets OLEDs as the first applications, it has many other possible usages. CN-VOLETs are compatible with flexible substrates and can be patterned using conventional lithography and subtractive etching (oxygen plasma).
The carbon-nanotubes enabled a new backplane design which uses a vertical channel rather than a horizontal one. This allows for sub-micron channel length without using high-res patterning. nVerPix says that their design achieved excellent uniformity and enables lower current densities which extend the lifetime of the OLED materials. As can be seen in the image below, CN-VOLETs also increase the aperture ratio:
nVerPix are currently developing the technology. They are focusing on stability, contrast ratio (they say that even at the current stage, a CN-VOLET will have more than double the contrast compared to LTPS AMOLEDs) and the pixel to pixel uniformity. The company's latest demo consists of four RGB pixels units (12 subpixels). Each sub-pixel is 0.32 mm wide and 1.5 mm high. You can see it live in the video below:
