Technical / Research - Page 47

Update: Kyushu University published an interesting video with more details about this new technology

Researchers from Japan's Kyushu University developed new efficient rare-metal free OLED emitter materials based on dicyanobenzene derivatives. They say that these new materials (which they call hyperfluorescence) are as efficient as phosphorescent OLEDs, but are cheaper (about 1/10th of the cost) because they do not require rare metals.

The researchers say that they are now seeking to collaborate with Japanese makers to commercialize this technology "at an early date". They already created some display prototypes with the new materials (see photo above).

Researchers from the US DOE's Ames Laboratory have developed a new OLED display anode ITO alternative based on a PEDOT:PSS polymer. This material is basically not conductive and transparent enough to be used in OLEDs, but by using a multi-layered technique and special treatments the researchers were able to fabricate PEDOT:PSS OLEDs that are actually 44% more efficient than ITOs, and are transparent enough. This is in fact the most efficient transparent anode material ever developed.

PEDOT:PSS is also flexible, which means it can be used to make flexible OLED panels, unlike ITO. There's a lot of interest in replacing ITO which is expensive, not flexible and not environmental friendly. Just last month there were two interesting announcement regarding ITO alternatives in OLED lighting: Konica Minolta and NEDO's new replacement film and Heraeus' new polymer OLED HIL-E materials.

Nanosys announced it has raised $15 million (this is the company's sixth financing round) - to expand its QDEF production capacity. Nanosys says that response from manufacturers has been great and demand for their QDEF film (which improves the color performance and efficiency of LCD displays) has grown - so much they will now expand their capacity tenfold, which will make them the largest quantum dot producer in the world.

QDEF films are drop-in films that are placed on a phosphor-less gallium nitride LED backlight. They act like a phosphor - absorbing the blue light from the LED and producing red and green light, which is then combined with the original blue light to generate a high-quality white light. They say that a QDEF-powered BLU is more efficient, too. Back in June I visited Nanosys' booth at SID 2012, you can read more about this interesting technology here.

Konica Minolta and NEDO (Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) developed a new OLED lighting panel that uses a transparent conductive film instead of ITO. KM presented a prototype 130x130 mm panel:

We don't have any technical info on the new film, but KM says it's highly conductive and has a lower resistance compared to ITO.

ITRI announced it has developed a full roll-to-roll process on 100um flexible glass substrates - they say they're the first in the world to do so. ITRI has been collaborating with Corning on this technology, and they are using Corning's flexible Willow glass, unveiled at SID 2012.

ITRI and Corning developed specially designed R2R machines that produce touch panel modules on Corning Willow Glass, a flexible display-grade glass substrate. ITRI are now looking for companies that sell this technology - which can be used for OLED display and lighting panels, solar panels and more applications.

Display Central posted an interesting article (update: it is no longer available, sadly) discussing Samsung's Gen-8 AMOLED fab plans. They say that the company is still on track with their original plan - to start with LTPS production and later on switch to Oxide-TFT (IGZO). Samsung seems to think that IGZO is not ready yet for OLED mass production.

The article quotes Barry Young from the OLED Association saying that Samsung has managed to scale up LTPS for their Gen-8 pilot line and have now ordered high-volume Gen-8 production tool from APS.

Japan Display unveiled their first OLED prototype, a 4.5" 1280x720 (326 ppi) panel at the FPDI 2012 exhibition. JD is using an WRGB architecture (white OLEDs with color filters) and a top-emission device structure.

JD says that mass production of this panel will begin in fiscal 2014. Back in April 2012 they announced plans to start OLED mass production by March 2013. In any case, it's great to see their first OLED prototype.

Back in September we posted that AUO managed to achieve 50% yield in its AMOLED fab, and is set to start mass production. Now we hear from AUO's vice president Dagang Wu that the company is still facing technical issues and will have to delay mass production to 2013. Hopefully this means early 2013. AUO is optimistic that AMOLED will start replacing LCDs in mobile phones starting in 2013 (or 2014).

AUO hoped to start AMOLED mass production in Q3 2012 (which was also a delay from the original plan). AUO will make 4.3" qHD panels (257 ppi), and according to some industry insiders AUO already signed up HTC, Asus and possible Sony for those panels.

Merck has signed a cooperation and licensing agreement with Seiko Epson. According to the agreement, Epson will supply Merck with ink technology that dissolves Merck's soluble OLED materials so that they can be used for the production of printable OLED displays. This brings Merck closer to providing production-ready OLED printing materials.

The two companies will also continue their close cooperation to create a strong ink-formulation roadmap in order for Merck to commercialize and address current and future requirements of the OLED TV industry, including the creation of industry-standard inks for manufacturing OLED TVs using inkjet technology.

ETNews reports that Samsung decided to postpone its flexible OLED production to 2013, and will use those pilot lines to produce regular glass-based OLEDs. Samsung has to delay flexible OLEDs because of technical issues (low uniformity and slow encapsulation) - but also because they need more OLED capacity because of high demand for larger AMOLED displays.

Samsung Display can currently produce 56,000 5.5-Gen (1300x1500 mmm) glass substrates a month. The pilot lines used for flexible OLED development can produce 8,000 more substrates monthly, bringing the total to 64,000.