Power consumption - Page 22

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.

A couple of months ago Toshiba developed a unique transparent OLED lighting device structure that emits most of the light (over 95%) in only one direction. Now at SID 2013 the company unveiled more information about the new structure, calling these panels "Transmissive Single-sided OLEDs".

Regular transparent OLEDs use transparent electrodes (usually made from ITO) for both sides of the panel. When the OLED is turned on, it emits light in both directions. Sometimes this poses problems - if you want to embed such panels in windows, for example, you don't want light pollution on the outside which just wastes electricity. In addition, when such OLED panels are turned on they are no longer transparent.

Last year Qualcomm announced that they no longer plan to mass produce Mirasol displays, but during SID they unveiled their latest panels, and obviously they are still developing the technology. The company's latest panels feature a very high pixel density (557 PPI). The 5.1" panel has a resolution of 2560x1440 while the 1.5" panel's resolution is 600x600:

Mirasol displays are very power efficient (they draw about a sixth of the power required by a similar OLED or LCD panel). On the other hand, the color reproduction isn't up to par with LCDs or OLEDs. Still this is an interesting technology to watch.

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).

OLEDWorks have successfully completed its Series A funding round from private investors. While we do not know the exact amount, this money will (according to the company) enable them to start producing "low-cost" OLED lighting panels.

OLEDWorks is building an OLED lighting manufacturing fab in Rochester, NY, and they say that they will offer low-cost OLEDs through the use of equipment and process innovation. Next week at LightFair 2013 they will present their first OLED prototypes, which they plan to start shipping in the second half of 2013.

OLEDWorks' first panels will be 4x4 inch (12x12 cm) in size - and they will be efficient (over 45 lm/W). The company will offer two options: OLED panels on glass and on metal. The panels be thin (under 3 mm) and will come in six color variants - red, blue, green, amber and three white color options (3000K, 3500K and 4000K).

The European AEVIOM (Advanced Experimentally Validated OLED model) project, a 3-year collaboration between leading academic and industrial groups in Europe has concluded - and the researchers managed to develop a new technique that precisely calculates the color of light produced from OLED lighting panels.

This new technique could simplify and improve the OLED design process (currently manufacturers had to rely on trial and error to see the exact color produced in a new panel). The new software can also be used to optimize OLED panels and make them more efficient.

In February 2013 LG Chem told us that they plan to release the world's first flexible OLED lighting panels and high-efficiency 80 lm/W panels in July 2013. The company is now showing these upcoming panels at Euroluce 2013, and is still on track to release them in July.

In the photo above you can also see some new lighting design suggestions from LG Chem and others that use the new panels.

Philips announced an updated GL350 OLED lighting panel (we'll call it the GL350 Gen2). The new panel looks the same as the panel announced in April 2012 (square 124.5x124.5 m), but it's brighter: 200 lumens per panel, up to 45 lm/W efficacy and a luminance of 6,500 cd/m². This new panel will be available in Q3 2013.

We do not know the price of this new panel. The current GL350 is only available in a starter kit that costs €400.00 (about $555) that includes 3 OLED panels, a driver, a short circuit protection unit and all required connector cables. 

In December 2012 we posted about Japan's Kyushu University new rare-metal free fluorescent OLED emitter materials that achieve 100% emission efficiency. Now the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) released a new video featuring Kyushu's professor Chihaya Adachi. Following a rather long introduction into his lab and his own biography, professor Adachi explains their thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) technology (also called hyperfluorescence).

Adachi says that are seeking a commercialization partner, and they still need to study the degradation mechanism and expand the emission spectrum. Towards the end of this video you can view a couple of prototype monochrome (green) panels that use their new emitters.