Mitsubishi Chemical and Pioneer have jointly developed OLED elements produced using a wet coating process for the light-emitting layers. The two companies will establish a testing facility with an aim to commercialize this technology for OLED lighting mass production by 2014.
Mitsubishi's and Pioneer's OLED coating project began in January 2010, and in May 2011 the companies announced that they managed to fabricate a white OLED in which the emissive layer was formed in a coating process. That OLED featured 52 lm/W and a lifetime (LT50) of 20,000 hours (@1,000cd/m2 luminance). The new panel produced now features 56 lm/W and a lifetime (LT70) of 57,000 hours (@1,000cd/m2 luminance) which is quite an improvement.
The new testing facility which will be up and running by the end of 2012 at Yonezawa, Yamagata prefecture in Japan will include a Gen-1 glass substrate (40x30 cm) and will be used to produce and evaluate prototype panels. The Japanese Economy Ministry will partially fund the facility.
Pioneer also announced today that it will be expanding its existing OLED lighting production facilities which have been producing color-tunable Velve panels since 2011, sold under the Verbatim brand.
