Universal Display today announced that it has been awarded a $99,919 Small
Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant from the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) under the Department's
Solid State Lighting program.
The program, titled 'Enhanced Light
Outcoupling in WOLEDs', will focus on
demonstrating a novel technique to improve the optical outcoupling
efficiency of a white OLED. Through the use of this novel technique,
Universal Display intends to double the outcoupling efficiency,
resulting in an external quantum efficiency of about 50%.
Using the Company's high-efficiency
UniversalPHOLED(TM) technology, white OLEDs can
achieve up to a 100% internal quantum efficiency - meaning that all of
the electrical energy can be converted into light. Typically, only 20%
of that light is directed through the front surface as useful light;
however, an external component is often added to OLED panels to collect
and emit more light. By comparison, the novel approach proposed for this
project involves integrating an outcoupling enhancement directly within
the layers of the OLED device. This approach has the potential to double
the light output, while preserving the OLED's
thin form factor, and may also be significantly more cost effective to
manufacture. Such improvements are important for white OLEDs to achieve
the DOE's targets of 150 lumens per watt
(lm/W) with a cost of less than $50/Kilolumen.
Posted: Sep 17,2008 by Ron Mertens
