TADF OLED emitters, introduction and market status - Page 13

Last week we reported that Kyushu University spun-off a new company, called Kyulux, to commercialize the TADF emitters developed at Kyushu. Kyulux raised $13.5 million USD, and today the company made an official announcement - including the full investor list.

It turns out that besides LG Display, Kyulux lists Samsung Display, Japan Display and JOLED as investors. The round was led by Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and other participants include top tier Japanese venture capital funds, and a Japanese Government affiliated venture fund.

Earlier this month we reported that Kyushu University spun-off a new company, called Kyulux, to commercialize the TADF emitters developed at Kyushu. Kyulux raised ¥1.5 billion (around $13 million USD) and hopes to have their emitters ready by 2018.

According to the OLED Association, LG Display now invested a further $2.8 million in Kyulux. Kyulux also signed an agreement with Kyushu University to transfer 50 patents. Kyulux did not specify how much they paid for those patents - but it did say that the series A round (those $13 million) were raised at least partly to buy those patents.

Researchers from Kyushu University managed to drastically increase the lifetime of TADF OLED emitters - by more than eight times. This was achieved by a simple modification to the structure of the device - putting two thin (1-3 nm) layers of Liq (a lithium-containing molecule) on each side o the hold blocking layer.

The researchers started with a TADF device, in which the lifetime is only about 85 hours (LT95). This is under "extreme brightness" to accelerate testing. With the new design and some extra modifications, the device's lifetime increased to 1,300 hours - over 16 times better than the initial device. This is a great achievement - even though this is not enough for commercialization yet.

Researchers from Kyushu University (led by Chihaya Adachi) are developing highly efficient blue OLED TADF (Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence, also called hyper-fluorescence) emitters.

Kyushu University now spun-off a new company, called Kyulux, backed by the University's QB Fund and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, to commercialize the TADF emitters. Kyulux raised ¥1.5 billion (around $13 million USD) and hopes to have their emitters ready by 2018.

Idemitsu Kosan is a large multinational Chemical company based in Japan that is supplying OLED materials for OLED producers. Idemitsu has OLED business units in Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China and is collaborating with UDC, LGD, AU Optronics, Doosan and others.

Hajime Nakamoto, the head of the Electronic Materials Department at Idemitsu was kind enough to answer a few questions we had. Mr. Nakamoto joined Idemitsu in 1984 and has been involved with OLEDs since 2007.

Q: Hajime, Thank you for your time. Idemitsu has been one of the leaders in OLED materials for a very long time. Can you tell us what kind of materials you currently offer for OLED panel makers?

Idemitsu offers almost all kinds of OLED materials to OLED panel makers. Idemitsu is particularly well-known for its fluorescent blue host and dopant materials and transport materials, which offer advantages to OLED panel makers.

Gildas Sorin has been appointed CEO of Bruchsal-based Cynora with immediate effect. His great experience in the OLED and display industry makes Mr. Sorin the ideal candidate to take Cynora to the next stage.

This is a strong sign for the development of Cynora being a technology leader in the field of TADF emitter systems for OLEDs since its start in 2008. The French top manager brings his long and international experiences in OLED industries, and his change to the management is also regarded as a signal of the Cynora partners to use the technology leap and translate it into specific economic successes.

n-tech Research (Nanomarkets) released a new report (OLED Materials Markets 2015-2022) in which they see the OLED materials market growing from $970 million in 2015 to over $4.4 billion in 2020 and $9.7 billion in 2022.

n-tech sees positive development in OLEDs for mobile devices and wearables, but "some uncertainty" in OLED TVs and OLED lighting. n-Tech is also seeing pricing pressures that will accelerate with the expiration of key IP over the next few years, although novel value-added materials (such as better emitters, TADF materials and a deep blue PHOLED emitter) may offset this somewhat.

The European Commission, under its Horizon 2020 programme, launched a new project called Phebe that aims to develop and commercialize TADF OLED emitters. This three-year project's consortium includes Novaled, Astron-FIAMM, TU Dresden, Kaunas University of Technology, Durham University and other companies and universities.

TU Dresden is focusing on material design using theoretical quantum chemical approaches, and KTU is elaborating synthetic schemes for exciplex emitters and intramolecular charge transfer materials and synthesizing the most promising compounds. Durham will perform photophysical characterisation of the new materials from Kaunus and will also be in charge of elucidating the mechanisms of TADF to feed into the theoretical work of TU Dresden. Novaled will provide best-fit transport and doping material sets, technology and expert know-how on stack architecture.

The Polish Academy of Science is organizing two new OLED related summer schools in 2014. Those International Krutyn Summer Schools are high-level and highly intensive scientific events that include training in the form of lectures and scientific consulting sessions designed for PhD students and young researchers seeking to reinforce their knowledge and skills.

The first event (summer school #15) focuses on organic photonics and electronics, with profound emphasis on revolutionary TADF emitters as OLED materials replacing expensive platinum group metallacycles. The week long event (June 8 to June event is organized jointly by Japan's Kyushu University and Poland's Supramolecular Chemistry Network Foundation, and the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Researchers from Kyushu University (led by Chihaya Adachi) developed a highly efficient blue OLED TADF (Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence) emitter that achieves almost 20% external quantum efficiency - similar to the best blue phosphorescent emitters.

TADF OLEDs are free from the heavy metals used in phosphorescent emitters and so they could be cheaper and better for the environment. The main problem with blue phosphorescent OLEDs is the short lifetime which still makes it impossible to use them in commercial applications. The new TADF blue OLEDs has about the same lifetime as the blue PHOLEDs, but researchers are hopeful that it will be easier to improve the lifetime of the TADF emitters.