Technical / Research - Page 107

In June 2008, I had the chance of interviewing Dr. Geoff Williams, Topless's project manager. Geoff has a PhD from University of Durham, and later worked in Philips Displays and he now works in Thorn lighting.

Whether or not this will actually happen is still to be determined. Oxide semiconductor technology for display applications is not a mature technology and repeatability is said to be a significant issue. Currently all AMOLEDs in mass production are fabricated with some version of ELA or solid phase crystallization. Sony is investing in a dTLA (Diode Thermal Laser Annealing) pilot line to prove the manufacturability of its µc-Si technology. Others pursuing direct deposit p-Si, RTA (Rapid Thermal Annealing) and other techniques to overcome the continued uniformity, cost and scaling problems related to ELA. But, at least, the strong interest by the SID paper selection committee and the impressive results shown by Samsung SDI and others, suggest that oxide semiconductors are a technology to keep a close eye on when evaluating future AMOLED opportunity.

Read more here (DisplaySearch blog) 

CDT, Sumitomo and Novaled plan to co-develop hybrid OLED devices combining both new polymer emitting layers and doped electron transport layers. It is expected that these hybrid devices will offer further improvements in power efficiency without additional manufacturing complexity. The parties have reached an agreement on how IP generated during the JDA will be handled. Further, Novaled will grant a license to CDT enabling CDT to add necessary Novaled device IP to its existing and future licenses. Each company will remain responsible to market its own materials resulting from this co-development.

CDT continues to focus its effort on supporting the PLED supply chain and is pleased to be involved in yet another joint development project which has the potential of bringing new materials and improved device performance to our licensees, says David Fyfe, CEO of CDT.

Universal Display Corporation will today report advances in the development of P2OLED™, printable, phosphorescent OLED, material systems for use with ink-jet printing processes at the Society for Information Display’s (SID) 2008.

Presenting on a joint paper with Seiko Epson Corporation, Dr. Sean Xia, Senior Research Scientist at Universal Display, will describe advances in red, green and blue P2OLED material systems. Dr. Xia will also discuss the companies’ demonstration of ink-jet printed P2OLED technology and their continuing work to achieve commercial entry performance goals. Ink-jet printing has the potential to be a cost-effective approach for the production of large-area OLED displays.

The collaborative paper is the result of a joint development program during which the two companies successfully demonstrated the compatibility of Universal Display’s P2OLED technology and materials with Epson’s proprietary ink-jet printing process technology.

Through continued development using spin-coating techniques, the team has doubled the projected operating lifetime of its red P2OLED system since late last year to 100,000 hours (from an initial luminance of 500 cd/m2) with CIE coordinates of (0.67, 0.33) and a luminous efficiency of 12 candelas per Ampere (cd/A). The team also improved the projected lifetime of its green P2OLED system with CIE(0.33, 0.62) and a luminous efficiency of 34 cd/A to 63,000 hours (from an initial luminance of 1,000 cd/m2).

The team also made progress in the development of two blue P2OLED systems. A light blue P2OLED system with CIE(0.18, 0.39) and a luminous efficiency of 19 cd/A now has a projected lifetime of 6,000 hours from an initial luminance of 500 cd/m2, also twice that reported late last year. A new blue P2OLED system has more saturated color, with CIE(0.15, 0.22), a luminous efficiency of 6 cd/A and a projected lifetime of 1,000 hours (from an initial luminance of 500 cd/m2).

Universal Display’s PHOLED technology and materials, which offer up to four times higher energy efficiency than traditional OLED systems, are today being incorporated in products manufactured using conventional vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE) equipment. Universal Display’s P2OLED materials and technology are based on this same PHOLED technology, but are designed for use with solution-based manufacturing processes such as ink-jet printing.

OLED-T announced a new electron injector material together with third party verified performance results.

The new electron injector material named E225 had a 66 per cent performance improvement in brightness and 30 per cent reduction in driving voltage. These results are based of test displays where E255 was used in combination with OLED-T’s electron injector EI-101 and compared with standard configurations of electron injector and transport materials typically used as the industry benchmarks.

A phosphorescent red display device using a combination Aluminium Quinolate (Alq3) as the electron injector and Lithium Floride (LiF), as the electron transport had a brightness of 9.8 lumens per Watt, whereas by replacing the injector and transport layers for a combination of OLED-T’s E225 and EI-101 respectively, the brightness improved to 16.3 lumens per Watt. Display devices were driven for more than 520 hours at a current of 40mAcm-2.

The voltage required to drive the devices at 1,000cdm-2 was cut by 30 per cent. The industry benchmark materials of Alq3 and LiF required a driving voltage of 7.7V. Using a combination of OLED-T’s E225 and EI-101 reduced this to 5.4V.

OLED-T is delighted with the third party results for this new electron transport and injector material set. The results show a step improvement on existing industry standard materials, said Myrddin Jones, CEO, OLED-T.

Details of the third party characterisation results for E225 are available from OLED-T but an industry standard confidentiality agreement prevents OLED-T from naming the third party.

Idemitsu Kosan and Sony announced the achievement of 28.5% internal quantum efficiency (IQE) in deep blue fluorescent OLED devices, the world's highest level of luminous efficiency for this technology.

This ground-breaking development is a result of Idemitsu's advanced OLED material technologies and Sony' OLED device expertise, brought together by the two companies' joint development agreement (established in November 29th, 2005). This joint agreement has led to the development of a wide range of high-performance OLED materials that have been incorporated in Sony products, and going forward both Idemitsu and Sony will also consider various practical applications for this newly developed, world-leading blue OLED technology. 

Sumitomo now says they have been "misquoted" - they will not be able to make large OLED TVs in 2009. They are still working on the tech (with several partners), and a source at CDT (who was acquired by Sumitomo a year ago) says the displays might indeed be ink-jet "printed"

Researchers at Sumitomo Chemical and Mitsubishi Chemical are working on "spreadable" OLED displays, that will also double as solar-panels - they might be self powered in this way. The displays can be "painted" on any material, creating a 100nm thin display.

The companies actually claim to work towards prototypes in 2 years.

Universal Display Corporation announced today that the Company has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant for $99,978 from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to develop its flexible OLED display technology for rollable applications. The ultimate goal of this U.S. Air Force program is to develop lightweight, rugged, low power displays that can replace printed paper maps on pilots’ knees and be rolled up for stowage when not in use. Rollability is also important for a variety of novel commercial applications, including the Company’s concept Universal Communication Device.

Under the terms of this nine-month Phase I grant, Universal Display and its partner, L-3 Display Systems, will provide the U.S. Air Force with an initial design and mock-up of a low-power consumption, full-color, video-rate OLED display that can be rolled around a cylinder for stowage. If successful, Universal Display would then propose a follow-on Phase II program to deliver six-inch diagonal, 480 x 480 full-color, active matrix PHOLED display prototypes that would be built on metallic foil to be flexible enough to wrap around a 2.5 inch diameter cylinder containing the power supplies and wireless communication electronics.

We are excited to continue the research and development of flexible and rollable OLED technology an idea that is moving quickly from being a vision to becoming a reality,The U.S. Air Force as well as other branches of the U.S. Department of Defense have been strong supporters of our flexible OLED technology. Also offering thinness, light weight and ruggedness, rollable displays may revolutionize the way soldiers view information on the battlefield and in the cockpit. This program should also support our efforts to commercialize FOLED technology for a variety of novel consumer applications. said Steven V. Abramson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Display.

DuPont and Dainippon Screen Manufacturing Co. today announced their intention to form a strategic alliance to develop integrated manufacturing equipment for printed organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. The companies have also signed an agreement relating to their intention to bring together the elements needed--materials, technology and equipment--to mass produce OLED displays, delivering higher performance at a lower cost.

"The flat panel display market is about $100 billion annually and growing. DuPont is applying its science to make possible more vivid displays that are lower cost than current LCD displays," said David B. Miller, group vice president, DuPont Electronic & Communication Technologies. "We are excited to combine our strengths with Dainippon Screen's unique printing technology to bring to market the core technology that will enable improved high definition televisions and other flat panel displays."