Phosphorescent - Page 15

Researchers from the University of Utah developed a new polymer light emitting device that can be tuned to emit light of different colors, including white (without the need to mix several emitters). The new material is a polymer molecule doped with platinum. The same material can also be used to develop efficient OPVs or Spintronics-based memory devices.

The device currently being developed at Utah isn't an OLEDs as it only emits light when stimulated by other light (such as a laser) and not when simulated by an electrical current. But the researchers say that a white OLED based on this technology is possible and predict that it will be developed within two years. The current device isn't actually white, it emits colored color (more on this below) and they say it will take about one year till they manage to develop a white Pt-1 device.

Universal Display announced their financial results for Q2 2013. Revenues were $49.4 million and net income was $15.4 million - this was higher than expected and was driven by high green materials (emitter and host) sales to Samsung (green was finally adopted for the GS4). UDC says material sales grew 111% compared to Q2 2012 to $12.8 million, and royalty and license fees were up 37% (to $21.2 million, out of which $20 million were from SDC).

UDC said it expects full-year results to reach the high-end of its previous forecast - which was $110-125 million.

Cynora is a German startup established in 2003 that developed copper-based OLED emitter systems. In October 2012 the company unveiled a mostly-solution-based flexible OLED prototype, developed in collaboration with InnovationLab. Last month Germany’s BMBF launched the cyCESH project which aims to develop soluble (printable) materials for low-cost high efficiency OLED lighting devices. Cynora is the leader of the consortium in this €6 million project, together with Novaled and the University of Regensburg.

Cynora's technology is interesting and the company's CEO Dr. Tobias Grab and the company's Business Development manager, Dr. Mathias Mydlak, were kind enough to provide the information for this article explaining the company's technology.

A few days ago we reported about new research from Dankook University (DKU) that developed the world's most efficient blue OLED emitter. Today I talked with Professor Lee Jun Yeob, who's in charge of that research at DKU, and he explained his research further.

It turns out that in that particular research, they developed a new host material for blue OLEDs, and not a new emitter. The 30.1% efficiency they quote is external quantum efficiency. The blue emitter itself is a phosphorescent OLED - a common emitter known as FIrpic (Iridium based). Universal Display were not involved in this work.

NHK's Science & Technology Research Laboratories (STRL) unveiled a new 8" flexible OLED prototype panel. The panel features a resolution of 640x480 (100 ppi) and is based on an amorphous InGaZnO (a-IGZO) TFT backplane.

STRL says that the red emitter material is a new phosphorescent material that is made from a benzoquinoline derivative host doped with a platinum based complex. The encapsulation is made from a polymer material.

Samsung's flagship Galaxy S4 phone uses a new OLED panel which adopts a green PHOLED emitter - which cuts the power consumption by about 25%. During the latest SID conference, Samsung demonstrated this very nicely:

Panasonic Corporation developed a white OLED lighting panel that is the world's highest luminous efficiency - 114 lm/W for a light-emitting area of 1 cm². Panasonic also developed a larger panel (25 cm²) with 110 lm/W. The panels also feature long lifetime - over 100,000 hours (LT50) and a brightness of of 1,000 cd/m². The panel thickness was less than 2 mm.

Panasonic 114 lm/W OLED panel

To achieve this high efficiency, Panasonic focused on an all-phosphorescent design (with an optimal stacked layer design) and new light extraction technology. Panasonic used a Built-up Light Extraction Substrate (BLES) by optimizing the arrangement of the film, glass and air to suppress light confinement in the OLED. This enable them to achieve about 2.5 times improvement in the light extraction efficiency, which is about 50% in the new panels. Panasonic says that in older technology the light extraction efficiency stayed below 40%. Panasonic says they hold 30 patents in Japan and 17 overseas - all related for this new development.

Universal Display reported their financial results for Q1 2013. Revenues were $15 million (up 19% compared to Q1 2012) - with a 40% increase in commercial material sales, mostly due to the fact that Samsung Display Corporation (SDC) adopted UDC's green PHOLED (host and emitter) in the 5" Full-HD Super AMOLED dipslay used in the GS4 smartphone (shipments of these new materials started in March). UDC reported a net loss of $4.8 million in the quarter.

Guidance and cash

UDC did not change their revenue guidance for 2013 - it will be in the range of $110 - $125 million (32% to 50% increase over 2012). This includes a $40 million license free from SDC. They assume that the OLED market will grow to over $10 billion in 2013 (they use DisplaySearch estimates). UDC has around $220 million in cash and they used $10.9 million in the first quarter.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) announced four new OLED lighting research grants as part of its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

The first project, granted ($225,000) to Universal Display in collaboration with IDD Aerospace, aims to develop a low-energy shelf phosphorescent OLED light targeted at aircraft interiors. According to the DoE, IDD plans to commercialize this technology in 2015. Back in 2011, UDC showcased an all-phosphorescent, white OLED luminaire designed into an under-cabinet lighting system. This development was also funded by the DOE back in 2009. The warm-white OLED offer a power efficacy of 70 lm/W when operated at 190 lumens.

DisplayMate, the experts on display optimization, testing and evaluation, posted a new article comparing the GS4 display (4.99" Full-HD, 441 PPI) to the iPhone 5's LCD and the GS3. The GS4's Super AMOLED is a "very impressive display", and DisplayMate says that OLEDs have now reached the stage when they challenge the best LCD displays. There are advantages and disadvantages to both technologies, but we have to keep in mind that OLEDs are advancing at a much more rapid rate compared to LCDs which is now a mature technology.

Samsung Galaxy S4

Compared to the S3, the S4 is brighter by 25% (and when using Automatic Brightness, it's 68% brighter as this setting allows the brightness to reach a high level unreachable in manual brightness mode), it's 20% more power efficient (due to the green PHOLED materials) and it's got 44% more pixels per inch (and more than double the total number of pixels).