Technical / Research - Page 62

Toray Industries is showing a Samsung-made 4.6" flexible OLED panel - which uses Toray's "component". We're not sure exactly what component Toray is talking about. We know that Toray is working towards Polyimide-based OLED encapsulation, but the company also develops blue OLED materials (at least the did back in 2008) - so perhaps Samsung are using their emitting materials? After all we know that Samsung are collaborating with Ube Kosan on Polimide development.

In any case, this OLED was showcased in Tokyo in a Toray's latest-technology exhibition. This OLED on show seems to be the same one unveiled back in November 2010 - a 4.6" WVGA panel (you can see this panel on video below).

Panasonic Electric Works announced that they developed a new highly efficient OLED device - featuring 128 lm/W efficiency. This was achieved using a semi-spherical highly-refractive lens to enhance light extraction. The OLED panel is small - only 2x2 mm, and according to Panasonic this is the world's most efficient white OLED.

PEW says that in order to achieve this high efficiency, they inserted a light extraction layer composed of a highly-refractive material between the emissive layer (EML) and the glass substrate. The back side uses a high-reflectivity metal material. Detailed calculations were performed to minimize the internal reflection - this doubled the light extraction efficiency to 40%. This panel uses all-phosphorescent materials, and PEW says that this technique is actually similar to the technique used by Universal Display when they developed the 102 lm/W device back in 2008.

Yesterday we reported that Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi have signed an agreement to establish a new small/medium display business. Today we read some updates regarding the OLED plans of this new company.

Sony hybrid printed OLED prototype

They certainly consider OLEDs to be the 'core technology' of the next generation small size and medium size displays, and will invest in OLED R&D. Interestingly Sony says that their current OLED program focuses on larger OLED panels (17", 24") and so this business will remain at Sony. However they will provide technical OLED support for the new company. Sony is also considering transferring OLED patents to the new company.

Korean researchers developed a new glasses-free OLED based 3D technology that uses tiny prisms - called lucius prism. The idea is to use an array of these microscale prisms, each basically an OLED to create two different images - one for the right eye and one for the left eye. Currently the researchers describe a four-centimeter square prism array, although they estimate that they can make it larger, to make a 3D TV. The prism array was made from photocurable polyurethane acrylate (PUA), although any kind of transparent polymer could be used.

As we reported back in June, Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi have signed an agreement to establish a new small/medium display business - with aims to be the world's largest producer of touch LCD displays. The new company will invest in advanced R&D, focusing on next-generation technologies, including high resolution and thin OLEDs. 

Sony hybrid printed OLED prototype

Japan's government fund Innovation Network Corporation (INCJ) will invest around ¥200 billion (around $2.5 billion) in the new company and will own 70% of the shares. The rest will be split evenly between Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi, who will transfer all their related technology and their shares in their small/medium display subsidiaries.

Taiwan's government wants to establish an AMOLED R&D alliance, to help local companies compete with AMOLED leader Samsung. Currently it is reported that AU Optronics (AUO) has volunteered for the plan and are in talks with smartphone and PC makers HTC, Acer and Asustek to form the alliance. It's not clear whether other Taiwanese OLED makers (such as Chimei Innolux) will join too.

AUO 14-inch OLED prototype

The Taiwanese goverment will offer financial incentives as they hope this alliance will improve AMOLED yield rate and so help local companies secure customers for the AMOLED panels. AUO is facing technical issues which forced them to delay OLED production. CMI is facing both technical and financial problems and their OLED plans aren't clear.

Harvard researchers developed a new computer program that can predict new material designs. Scientists from Stanford used the software to create a new organic semiconductor which conducts charge faster then silicon - and so can be used make transistors used in OLED displays. While this is just a demonstration of the new software, it shows great promise for new material designs.

According to the researchers, transistors made from the new material operate 10 times faster then amorphous silicon transistors - this is the second-fastest organic semiconductor ever made. The researchers say that this material could be used in industrial applications, but the experiment has more significance as a proof of principle for their methods for using computers to develop new organic materials.

Corning says they developed a new glass for OLED TVs. Corning says that they believe in OLEDs - and the technology "will develop to become important to the display industry in the future and will require new glass compositions to maximize OLED potentials".

Corning estimates that in 2011, the demand for OLED TV glass will be around 10 million square feet. LCD TV Glass will amount to about 3 billion square feet...

LG Display hired Intertek to test its AH-IPS LCD technology against Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus. LG's AH-IPS offers 720x1280 resolution at 4.5" (329ppi) - and Intertek says that it's better than Samsung's OLED - in quality and color accuracy. LG's LCD is also more power efficient (although it's not clear how they tested it - it just says that it's better because it always draws the same energy, while OLEDs consume twice as much on white screens).

Samsung Galaxy S2

Universal Display announced advances in their white OLED lighting panels. The new panels use a Stacked-OLED (SOLED) architecture and exceed the DOE's commercial panel target of 10,000 hours (at an initial luminance of 3,000 cd/m²) by more than 20%. The panels are 15x15cm² in size and feature 90,000 liftimre (D70), 55 lm/W efficiency and a CRI of 86. A stacked-OLED provides better lifetime, but has more layers and is more difficult to manufacture.

The company also showcased an all-phosphorescent, white OLED luminaire designed into an under-cabinet lighting system. This development was funded in part under a DOE Solid State Lighting program back in 2009. The warm-white OLED offer a power efficacy of 70 lm/W when operated at 190 lumens (~1000 cd/m²), and 61 lm/W when at 420 lumens (~2200 cd/m²). The panels operate at a low voltage of ~4 V.