Technical / Research - Page 108

A breakthrough barrier technology from Singapore A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) protects sensitive devices like organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and solar cells from moisture 1000 times more effectively than any other technology available in the market, opening up new opportunities for the up-and-coming plastic electronics sector.

A team of scientists from Singapore’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) has developed a new patented film that has the highest reported water vapour barrier performance to date, as tested by the UK Centre for Process Innovation. The tests have shown that the new film is 1,000 times more impervious to moisture than existing technologies. This means a longer lifetime for plastic electronic devices such as solar cells and flexible displays that use these high-end films but whose sensitive organic materials are easily degraded by water vapour and oxygen. The new technology is a boon to the burgeoning plastic electronics industry that aims to deliver flexible, lightweight and cheap electronics products to consumers in ways that silicon electronics may never reach such as disposable or wraparound displays, cheap identification tags, low cost solar cells and chemical and pressure sensitive sensors.

Read more in the attached PDF document (you have to register to oled-info to view it)

Researchers have developed an improved oOLED sealing (encapsulation) process to reduce moisture intrusion and improve device lifetime.

OLEDs have better color and flexibility and the capability of larger displays, but companies still need an inexpensive encapsulation method that can be used to mass produce organic electronics that don’t allow moisture in, said Wusheng Tong, a senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI).

Manufacturers now seal displays in an inert atmosphere or in a vacuum environment. They glue a glass lid on top of the display substrate with a powder inside the display to absorb moisture that diffuses through the glue. These seals are expensive and labor-intensive to assemble.

With funding from GTRI’s independent research and development program, Tong and his GTRI collaborators senior research scientist Hisham Menkara and principal research scientist Brent Wagner have replaced the glass enclosure with a thin-film barrier formed by a less expensive conventional deposition method.

The researchers selected advanced ion assisted deposition, which utilizes reactive ions to deposit a high-density, pinhole-free thin silicon oxynitride (SiON) film on the OLED surface.

Read more here (Newswise)

"This patent creates a promising new approach to creating 3D images, which to our knowledge is not currently being pursued by any of our competitors. This technology is a truly unique avenue to creating 3D displays and has evolved from our multidisciplinary research strategy at OU," stated 3DIcon President Vivek Bhaman.

Inventor and Co-Principal Investigator at OU, Dr. Gerard Newman added, "Our innovation represents a completely new technology avenue for creating high resolution, low-energy 3D images while bypassing several of the technology challenges facing existing strategies for creating 3D displays."

3DIcon's research team at OU considers this invention to be groundbreaking in that it integrates technological advances across five areas, including: 1) photo elements, 2) light emitting elements, 3) circuits, 4) material synthesis through combination, and 5) light scanners and modulators.

"We believe that the potential applications of this patent create an opening for 3DIcon to enter significant new markets in the rapidly growing display area that includes 2D and 3D," added 3DIcon chairman and CEO, Martin Keating. "With each new patent, we further fortify our IP strategy and advance our commercial goals in the areas of 3D displays. Our research continues to provide new opportunities for the company."

In addition to its use for creating 3D displays, this patent also covers the creation of unique two-dimensional displays that would be wafer-thin, flexible, and most importantly free of connector cables and belts.

According to Dr. Jim Sluss, Principal Investigator for the project at OU, "When applied to 2D displays, we envisage flex screens as thin as a few millimeters that could literally be rolled up and put in your pocket."

In April 2008, we had the chance of interviewing Mary Kilitziraki, Fast2Light's project manager. Fast2Light is an integrated (9 companies, 3 research institutes and 2 universities) R&D project that aims to research and develop light emitting foils based on OLED tech.

Q: What are the major goals of the Fast2Light project? What will you consider to be a big success in the project?

Fast2Light aims to lay the foundations for marrying large-area roll-to-roll technologies with the field of organic electroluminescence, for all necessary layers in an OLED device on foil. We aim to set in place all the experimental platforms that when integrated will produce a high quality lighting foil. Yet, these technology platforms can be used in other electronic devices. We will indeed think ourselves as successful if we develop and master the new large-area processes and demonstrate these in a 30cmx30cm lighting foil in 3 years time. But equally important, one of the successes of the project will be the exploitation of our results, on platform level, in other fields of electronic devices.

OLED-T today announced the launch of its low temperature organic electron injector material EI-111-2Me. OLED displays are manufactured from a sandwich of different materials including the electron injector layer. This layer is responsible for injecting electrons from the cathode into the OLED structure, the efficiency of which is critical to the performance of the display.
 
EI-111-2Me is a low temperature replacement for Lithium Floride (LiF), the material typically used by OLED display manufactures as the electron injector layer within an OLED display. Low temperature OLED materials reduce the cost of manufacturing and the potential damage to the underlying layers of the display, thereby improving the lifetime and voltage drift over the lifetime of the OLED device.

EI-111-2 Me enables display manufacturers to improve the efficiency and lifetime of an OLED display, as well as reduce the operating voltage and minimising voltage drift. In customer trials using EI-111 as a direct replacement for LiF, display efficiency improved by 25 per cent and lifetime by 10 per cent.

EI-111-2 Me evaporates at 200oC as opposed to LiF which requires a temperature of over 600oC, making the deposition faster and more controlled and introducing the potential of using plastic as a substrate rather than glass. The reduced manufacturing temperature also eliminates the need for costly evaporation crucibles reducing the overall cost of manufacturing.

As the market for OLED matures display manufacturers are focused on reducing cost throughout the display supply chain. EI-111-2Me provides companies with a significant opportunity to reduce cost at the same time as improving the performance of OLED displays, said says Myrddin Jones, Chief Executive Officer at OLED-T.

OLED-T is sampling of EI-111-2Me with immediate effect and will commence volume production from the fourth quarter of 2008. The new material complements OLED-T’s already strong OLED material portfolio.

Researchers at Purdue University have created the first active matrix display that uses a new class of transparent transistors and circuits. The researchers say this is a first step towards flexible color monitors and heads-up displays in car windshields.

The transistors used in the display are made of nanowires, which are tiny cylindrical structures assembled on thin glass or plastic films. The nanowires used by the researchers for the display are as small as 20 nanometers or about a thousand times thinner than the average human hair. The nanowires were used to create an OLED display that rivals current flat-panel TVs in brightness.

Samsung Electronics has acquired the IP assets of Clairvoyante Inc, an IP licensing company responsible for the development of PenTile subpixel rendering display technology and associated gamut mapping algorithms. The IP includes extending the lifetime of high-resolution mobile OLED displays.

Chinese chemists have discovered a soluble and simple-to-make iridium complex that boosts the efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). This discovery could simplify the manufacture, and reduce the cost, of OLEDs for a wide range of future applications.

A team led by Biao Wang at Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China, has solved these problems by developing a new iridium complex that is both easy to make and highly soluble, potentially allowing it to be sprayed onto a surface.

The secret to the solubility lies in the choice of ligand: sterically-hindered phenolic groups. The researchers report that their complex, which combines iridium with three phenyl phthalazine-derived ligands, was 'unexpectedly' synthesised under mild conditions with no catalysts, simply from iridium chloride.

LG Chem and Universal Display Corporation today announced that they have signed a non-exclusive joint development agreement to accelerate the commercialization of high-performance OLED materials for use in OLED displays and lighting products. The collaboration will focus on combining LG Chem's electron transport and hole injection materials with Universal Display's phosphorescent OLED emitter materials and technology.

Universal Display's proprietary PHOLED technology offers up to four times higher efficiency than conventional OLED technology - a feature that is very important for today's battery-operated cell phones and other portable devices, as well as for tomorrow's large-area TV's and solid-state lighting products.