Technical / Research - Page 85

A few days ago, DuPont has unveiled new printable OLED materials. DuPont now say that they can print a 50" OLED TV in under two minutes. They are using a custom-made printer from Dai Nippon Screen Manufacturing Co.

Dupont worked with Dai Nippon Screen to develop a multi-nozzle printer for the new inks. The Dai Nippon printer generates a continuous stream of ink, rather than droplets, and moves over a surface at rates of four to five meters per second while patterning a display.

There's an interesting article over at EETimes, about Samsung's VP of OLED R&D Center, Brian Berkeley (an ex-Apple engineer). They say that Berkeley's presence in Korea is a proof of Samsung's commitment to lead the industry by recruiting the "best and the brightest" from all over the world.

Samsung 40-inch OLED TV Prototype

Dupont announced new record lifetime performance in printed OLEDs for displays. They say that this is sufficient for OLED TVs. The new Gen 3 solution-processable OLEDs offer 29,000 hours for red, 110,000 for green and 34,000 for blue (at typical TV brightness levels). This is enough for 8 hours  per day over 15 years...

Back in 2009, Dupont reported even better lifetime for OLEDs. But these new materials can be used in a printing process, which should make it cheaper and easier to produce OLED TV displays. DuPont has produced some test devices with the new materials and will show them at SID.

Universal Display reported their financial results. For the first quater of 2010, the net loss was $2.9 million, revenues were $4.2 million. The company reprots an increase in revenue (both in commercial OLED sales and development activities) and a decrease in operating costs.

LG Chem white OLED panels

UDC says they are devoting more and more resources into OLED Lighting. We know that they are working with Konika Minolta, and now UDC say that several more companies are using their materials in OLED Lighting prototypes: LG Chem, NEC Lighting, Panasonic (using UDC's red and green materials) and Showa Denko.

NEC Lighting OLED lamp prototype

UDC is currently shipping Red PHOLED materials for customers (mostly Samsung). They are also hoping that these customers will start using their Green materials, which will enable better efficiency on these displays.

Scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute have created a new nano-coating for glass-coated displays. They say that the new coating is completely reflection and glare free. It also makes it very scratch resistant. This can be a great solution for OLED displays in mobile phone that suffer from poor performance in the sun (although Super-AMOLED technology is a great step in that direction, too).>

Interestingly, they say that they got their insipiration from moths - which have non-reflective eyes...

Researchers say that exciton quenching and photon loss processes limit OLED efficiency and brightness. Organic light-emitting transistors (OLETs) are alternative, planar light sources combining, in the same architecture, the switching mechanism of a thin-film transistor and an electroluminescent device.

Trilayer OLET device and chemical structure

OLETs can be used to replace OLEDs in both display and lighting applications. According to new research, they are more than 100 times more efficient than equivalent OLEDs, and over 2 times more efficient than optimized OLED with the same emitting layer. There are still challenges for OLETs (the major one is operating voltage).

Advantech announced today that they have completed their $14 million financing round (from the Pan family and Shanghai Ventures - announced back in July 2009). The investment will be used to build an inline TFT production line using Advantec’s patented shadow mask deposition process. Advantech says that their technology can be used to produce an OLED TV for a similar or lower cost than an LCD TV!

Advantech 4-inch AMOLED panel

Advantech plans to start selling and licensing its active-matrix TFT backplanes and production lines to TV and e-paper manufacturers worldwide as early as 2011. The lines are used to produce OLED or e-paper backplanes, at "exceptionally low cost". The production line is also less wasteful (and so more environmentally friendly). They say that it'll reduce factory investment requirements of manufacturers by up to 90%.

Korea's Government will invest 30 billion won ($26.8 million) in a 4th-generation (730-920 millimeter glass) in-line deposit system manufacturing process for white OLEDs. The government will invest $17 million, the rest will come from private companies. R&D will focus on making the equipment needed to mass produce the panels, improve the process yield and train around 350 qualified workers.

ModisTech Flexible OLED Light prototype

Korea hopes to have the first Gen-4 plant, and the plan is to start commercial sales in 2013. These will be indirect lighting products. Direct lighting will hit the market at around 2015.

The STI Group is showing a package that has an organic solar cell and a white OLED. The packaging is a limited edition slipcase that holds a book, and it's made from environmentally friendly corrugated paper enhanced with various varnish effects, including an open-face corrugated inlay to offer an interesting contrast.

The OLED is a 20x20mm white OLED, and the solar cell is an organic solar cell. The solar cell only operates as a sensor (light detector) - the OLED is powered from a battery. All the electronics (including the OLED and solar cell) were provided from OES (Organic Electronics Saxony Association partners).

In February 2009, we interviewed Dr. Udo Heider, Merck's OLED Unit VP. Merck is a global pharmaceutical and chemical company based in Germany, working on high performance OLED materials. Dr. Heider was kind enough to do a follow-up interview with us...

Q: Dr. Heider, thanks for taking the time to do this second interview... Back in February you said that within nine months you'll have a solution-processable Green OLED ready. Any updates on that? What about Blue and Red?

Indeed it is with great pleasure for me to report that our development team has really done an excellent job in making progress and delivering results in the area of solution-processed OLED materials. Merck can now report that in a spin coating process, the gap between solution and evaporation processed phosphorescent green materials has been almost completely bridged. Merck is now shifting its focus to the implementation phase: this means working together with world renowned process and display manufacturers to make sure that these materials can now be printed in line with performance and yield requirements. We hope to report on results in this area in the near future. The extensive know-how that has been accumulated during the last couple of months in the areas of Green can now be transferred with confidence to the other primary colors Red and Blue. The key to success is based on combining the learnings and strengths of the Small molecule and Polymer OLED worlds.