Technical / Research - Page 25

Researchers from St. Andrews University in the UK used a micro blue OLED display to active individual live cells from a human embryonic kidney cell line that were tweaked to produce a light-sensitive protein.

The researchers say that this ability to use OLEDs to activate individual cells may enable cell-specific optogenetic control in cultured neuronal networks, brain slices, and other biomedical research applications. They say that OLEDs are an "ideal platform technology for investigating and controlling biological processes with single cell resolution".

The Fraunhofer FEP announced new large-area flexible OLED lighting panel prototypes that have been fabricated on ultra-thin glass and encapsulated with a ultra-thin glass foil in the same process.

The new process developed at the Fraunhofer institute is able to deposit OLEDs on the flexible glass and encapsulation it using an additional flexible glass layer - all in a a single roll-to-roll manufacturing step.

Germany-based OLED emitter developer Cynora announced it has made significant progress in its highly efficient blue OLED emitter material developments during the last 6 months. The company's materials are not yet ready for commercialization, but the company believes it is on its way.

Cynora develops TADF-based emitters, focusing on blue-color emitters. Cynora has developed deep blue material reaching an EQE of 16.3% (at 100 cd/m²) compared to 3% reached in October 2015, a factor 5 improvement in six months.

Researchers from Korea's Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have managed to create OLEDs that feature a 60% increase in light extraction efficiency and a 15% wider viewing angles.

To create these OLEDs, the scientists investigated the optical properties of the firefly's light-emitting cuticle which is patterned with tiny hierarchical structures. Out of all light-emitting animals, the firefly makes light in the most efficient way.

Back in 2011 the University of Florida announced a new organic-TFT backplane technology called CN-VOLET, which is especially suited for OLED panels. Earlier in 2010, the University spun-off a company called nVerPix to commercialize this technology.

At the SID DisplayWeek 2016, researchers from the University of Florida and the University of Seoul will present the world's first AMOLED display panel that use nVerPix's CN-VOLET backplane. The 2.5" monochrome display prototypes features a QVGA (320x240) resolution.

Researchers from Japan's Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) and Advanced Film Device developed a display that includes an OLED display on top of a reflective LCD. The idea is that such a display have high visibility in both a dark environment (using the emissive OLED) and a bright one (using the reflective LCD).

This is similar somewhat to transflective LCD displays and can prove to be a smart solution. The researchers say that the same FET layer is used to control both display devices and so results in a low-power device. The researchers will present this new development at SID DisplayWeek next month and hopefully we will bring more information.

OLED material developer Molecular Glasses announced that its phosphorescent host material was demonstrated to improve the lifetime of OLED devices by up to 1,500%, with external quantum efficiency of 20% and minimal luminance roll-off. This is in comparison to the "state-of-the-art phosphorescent host mCBP".

It is not clear to which host this is compared to, but the company says that these results were obtained following a 96 prototype device experiment that was recently completed at OLEDWorks' DOE approved laboratory.

The UK-based Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) recently installed a new roll to roll (R2R) slot die/screen printing and encapsulation line that can be used to print, coat and pattern a range of organic and in-organic solution based coatings.

The new line can assist researchers with development towards commercialization of a host of printable electronics applications - including photovoltaics, OTFT and printed batteries. The system was custom-built by VDL, and it consists of two pieces of equipment - a roll to roll slot die coating and rotary screen printing and a coating toolset.

In 2012 the EU launched the TREASORES project (Transparent Electrodes for Large Area Large Scale Production of Organic Optoelectronic Devices) that aimed to develop technologies that will lower the production costs of organic electronic devices.

The Fraunhofer FEP now reports that the project concluded successfully and one of the results was the development of several new transparent electrode and barrier materials. The project partners developed electrodes based on carbon nanotubes, metal fibres or thin silver - and these electrodes (some of which are already mass produced) enabled the creation of the OLED lighting device you can see above.

Researchers from Kyushu University managed to drastically increase the lifetime of TADF OLED emitters - by more than eight times. This was achieved by a simple modification to the structure of the device - putting two thin (1-3 nm) layers of Liq (a lithium-containing molecule) on each side o the hold blocking layer.

The researchers started with a TADF device, in which the lifetime is only about 85 hours (LT95). This is under "extreme brightness" to accelerate testing. With the new design and some extra modifications, the device's lifetime increased to 1,300 hours - over 16 times better than the initial device. This is a great achievement - even though this is not enough for commercialization yet.