Philips - Page 11

Euronews visited Philip's Aachen OLED center and produced a nice short video about Philips OLED Lighting research and commercial Lumiblade panels. This video will be aired on Euronews several times in the following week. It's a nice introduction to OLED Lighting technology and how OLED panels are made today:

The video features Kristin Knappstein, Philips' OLED business chief (we posted an interview with Kristin a few weeks ago) and Dr. Stefan Grabowsky, the OLED100.eu project manager (whom we interviewed in 2009) . You can also see the Mimosa interactive artwork and some nice shots from within Philips' labs.

Philips has transformed the Business Center OLED Lighting into a Global Business Unit OLED. They tell us that this emphasizes the importance of OLEDs within Philips. Kristin Knappstein, Head of Business Creation in the OLED unit has kindly agreed to answer a few questions we had.

Q: Hi Kristin, and thanks for your time. You have launched the first Lumiblade panels back in 2009. How's the response so far?

The first Lumiblade panels were already available in 2008 through our Technology kit, which was very well sought after.

Since then we have had constant request for panels in all shapes and sizes. Today, people not only can order from from our webshop a wide array of standard panels which are delivered in our Lumiblade Experience Kit but also our Lumiblade modules and moreover Lumiblades of individual shapes and sizes by contacting us.

Reactions have been very positive and inspiring to us. General statements by our customers are that it is good to have a brand new technology accessible the way we as Philips give access to it. As for a customer driven company it is our strategy to have this feedback in order to align our products with the customer needs.

Philips announced a new three-year project called EMO (Emerging Market OLED) - to research, develop and eventually produce OLED lighting panels targeting emerging markets in Brazil. Philips will collaborate with the CERTI Foundation (Reference Center in Innovative Technologies) in this project.

We don't have any technical details about this project yet (such as research goals and panel specification goals), or when do they hope to start production.

Update: We just got word from Philips, who confirmed that the showroom uses 800 of their white lumiblade panels.

Aston Martin is starting to sell their new One-77 supercar, and are using 800 white Philips' Lumiblade OLED panels to illuminate it in the showroom. The art installation was done by Jason Bruges Studio.

The One-77 has an aluminum body and carbon-fiber structure, a 7.3-liters engine capable of 740hp. It costs £1.2million in the UK (plus taxes).

Philips and the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology (ILT) will co-develop a new process for OLED production - which aims to make OLEDs bigger and cheaper. The idea is to use a mask with micrometer slits on the surface of the ITO electrode, and then deposit a thin-film of aluminum (or copper or sliver) metal. A laser is finally used to melt the metal - unto the slits in the mask. The result - very fine and thin conductor paths (up to 40 micrometers).

Thin conductor on glass

The Fraunhofer say that this has already been achieved in the lab, and the next stage is to commercialize this together with Philips. The process might be ready within two or three years.

Lumiotec started shipping their OLED Lighting kits back in February 2010. We were finally able to get our hands on one, and here's our hands-on review. We have already reviewed the Philips Lumiblade and the OSRAM ORBEOS panels, and we'll compare them all in this review.

Philips Research developed the first white OLED module that can be powered directly from a mains electricity supply. Philips says that such an OLED will be cheaper to use (there's no need for a bulky power management circuitry) and will also simplify luminaire design.

"We have combined proprietary interconnect and packaging technology to create this demonstrator," says Dr. Dirk Hente of Philips Research. "We’re already seeing AC-driven LEDs coming onto the market. Our prototype marks a breakthrough step towards a similar evolution in OLEDs.".

E2M Technology is introducing two OLED lighting kits based on OLED panels made by Philips and OSRAM. The first kit is called White Amethyst, and includes a 4cmx4cm Philips' Lumiblade white square panel (like the one we reviewed a while back). The kit includes one OLED panel, a driver and PC software (which can alter the lights luminosity level and program lighting sequences for up to four OLEDs via USB port). The kit also includes an on-board light sensor. It costs £459. Here's a sample art-piece that E2M is showing, using the White Amethyst kit:

The second kit is called White Sapphire, and this one is based around OSRAM's ORBEOS panel (here's our review of the ORBEOS). The ORBEOS is larger (a circle, 79mm diameter) than the Philips' square panel. The kit is otherwise pretty much the same, with the same driver and software. It costs £609.

Philips is offering a new OLED lamp (using their Lumiblade OLED panels) for sale, called The Edge. It was developed in collaboration with Established & Sons (Amanda Levete). According to Philips: "The EDGE is a flat ribbon of steel twisted into a self-supporting form. A groove is then cut into the steel, off center, to allow the cable to be expressed and to exaggerate the movement of the piece. With this project, Amanda Levete has succeeded in revealing the wafer-thin essence of OLEDs and creating a light that is completely reductive in its simplicity".

The EDGE OLED lamp

Philips will also start to sell another OLED lamp soon, The O'Leaf. This one was developed in collaboration with Modular Lighting Instruments. In O'Leaf, the form of the fixture is based on the organic shapes. It can be used as a table-lamp (shown below) or fixed on the wall.

Philips O Leaf OLED lamp

Philips has opened the Lumiblade Creative Lab - where professionals from a wide
range of creative backgrounds can experience and experiment with Lumiblades OLED lighting panels. It's a workshop based in Aachen, Germany that can give advice, guidance and practical support for OLED Lighting projects.

Philips ceiling OLED lamp photo

They are currently showing ten designs (some of them new, some older) utilizing Lumiblade panels.