The European OLLA project has demonstrated white OLEDs with an efficacy of 10 lm/W, as well as green ITO-free devices.
Europe's OLLA project, which brings together a consortium of 24 partners to investigate OLEDs for lighting applications, has delivered its first milestone to the European Commission.
imaging Technology international (iTi) announces the opening of its Inkjet Development Laboratory (IDL) for rental to customers. The IDL enables developers to test inkjet materials and processes on iTi's complete line of development tools at a fraction of the cost of purchasing such equipment.
The IDL is ideal for companies exploring inkjet's potential for nanoparticle fluids, printable electronics, organic electronics, OLED and PLED flat panel displays, touch panels, biomedical and other applications that benefit from the digital control and precise fluid metering offered by inkjet technology.
The researchers, located at the Technical University of Braunschweig, are claiming the development to be a world's first. Their approach is to use transparent TFTs (thin-film transistors) made of a 100-nanometer-thick layer of zinc-tin-oxide, which transmits more than 90 percent of visible light. Such transistors are more often made of silicon, which is used for LCDs (liquid crystal displays) but is highly absorptive in the visible part of the spectrum.
In the devices developed by the researchers, the brightness of the OLED pixels varied from 0 to 700 candelas per square meter by changing the voltage of the driving TFTs. By comparison, typical computer screens today reach a brightness of approximately 300 candelas per square meter.
Thomas Riedl, head of the organic and inorganic lasers team of the High-Frequency Institute at the Technical University of Braunschweig expects the first prototype transparent OLED displays to be available in two years.
A new organic molecule developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists may significantly improve the efficiency of organic solid state lighting. Direct conversion of electricity to light in "solid state" thin films of organic molecules occurs in organic light emitting devices which can be far more efficient than conventional "incandescent" light bulbs.
In an OLED, light emitting molecules harvest positive and negative charge carriers from oppositely charged electrodes to create excitons, which collapse to give light emission. By using organometallic phosphors, a photon can be emitted for every electron used so there is no wasted current.
But until now, no good host materials were available to transport the charge to blue phosphorescent light emitters. And, without an efficient blue component, it is not possible to generate the high quality white light required for indoor lighting. The PNNL team is solving this problem by linking small organic molecules together using inorganic "phosphine oxide" connecting units to make larger molecules that transport charge but do not interfere with the blue light emission process.
Researchers at GE Plastics have detailed a plastic-substrate system that they claim will lead to OLED (organic-light-emitting-diode)-based displays that are more flexible, lighter, more durable, and less costly to build than those based on glass substrates.
The system combines a high-temperature Lexan polycarbonate film with a transparent coating that protects the display from oxygen and moisture. The high clarity and high temperature resistance of the Lexan film enable the construction of a 125-micron-thick substrate that can withstand the heat involved in OLED fabrication and still allow optimal light transmission, according to the company.
In addition, the system should be amenable to high-volume-manufacturing processes that will drive down cost.
Global-Tech Appliances announced today that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Consortium Investment has entered into an agreement with Anwell Technologies a publicly listed company in Singapore, to form a joint venture company, Lite Array Holdings Limited, with its manufacturing facilities in China to exploit synergies related to the production of OLED systems.
With 13 of the 70 technical sessions at the Symposium, OLEDs represent the largest single technology concentration at SID 2006. Sessions will focus on OLED device structures, active-matrix (AM) OLEDs, OLED manufacturing, materials, and blue-emitting OLEDs. Notable OLED papers will cover flexible AMOLEDs on stainless-steel substrates (one paper each by Samsung SDI and Universal Display Corp.), and white OLEDs (Novaled GmbH).
The West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund (WPPSEF) announced today that it has invested $500,000 in Plextronics, the world leader in developing active layer technology that enables broad market commercialization of printed electronic devices, to accelerate the development of Plexcore⢠HIL for solid state white lighting (SSL).
Plexcore HIL is an organic non-acidic, solvent-based hole injection layer for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Plexcore HIL for SSL is an extension of the Plexcore HIL product line. The flexibility of the Plexcore⢠platform enables the polymer design to be modified at the nano-molecular level and an ink to be formulated that optimizes the solid state lighting application. This ink when printed becomes an "active layer" which drives performance of the lighting device.
The investment by WPPSEF will allow product development in Plexcore HIL to expand and include emitters used in SSL applications. A key area of development will be improving the lifetime and efficiency of the device, two challenges to broad market commercialization.
Although Corning Inc. is strongly entrenched in the liquid crystal display (LCD) glass market, the company appears to have more than a passing interest in the fledgling market for OLED display technology.
Corning is in the early stages of R&D on possibly developing a new glass composition optimized for polysilicon OLEDs, according to Peter Bocko, division vice president and director of commercial technology for Corning’s Display Group, in an interview in New York Friday (March 24).
Universal Display has been awarded a $500,000 extension to a successfully completed Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract from the U.S. Army Communication Electronics Research and Development Engineering Center (CERDEC).
This extension builds on previous advances Universal Display (Ewing, N.J.) made in developing full-color, active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) displays fabricated on a flexible metal foil substrate, based on the company's proprietary technologies and materials. The focus of the contract extension is to incorporate a laminated protective layer to the flexible AMOLED display, as well as to develop additional communications functionality and to integrate the display into a wrist-mountable housing.
