Transparent OLEDs

Researchers drive an OLED display using Carbon Nanotubes

oled — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:04:35 -0500

Researchers from the University of Southern California has created a large functional array of transistors made using simple solution-processing methods from carbon nanotubes. These have been used to drive a simple 4" OLED display, and the group is now working towards a 'truly integrate' OLED display that is both flexible and transparent.

Carbon Nanotubes is a promising material for making control cibruit for displays - they are efficient, and can be used to make flexible and transparent displays. Now the USC researchers have found an 'easy' way to make large arrays of transistors with good performance.

Via MIT Technology Review

New research combines a solar-cell, OLED panel and batteries in one module

oled — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:09:54 -0500

The Florida Energy Systems Consortium (a state-funded effort to bring together researchers from 11 universities to work on renewable energy technology development) is developing a new Solar Cell + OLED + Battery Module. They are using organic solar cells on top of an OLED Lighting panel. The solar-cell is charging lithium-ion batteries which are used to power the OLEDs at night.

The idea is that all 3 components use direct current, and so an inverter is not needed, which makes the whole package cheaper.

Via GreenTechMedia

GE: roll-to-roll OLED Lighting panel printing is "real", reached over 90% yield

oled — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:35:23 -0400

GE is working since 2003 on roll-to-roll OLED printing (of flexible and transparent OLED lighting panels). Dr Yan from GE says that in 2007, they had fairly high defects, around 65% yield. Today GE says hat their yield is between 90%-95%.

One of the biggest issues GE is tackling is the flexible barrier layer to protect the OLED devices. GE has developed an "Ultra High Barrier" (UHB) by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The performance that has been achieved is low 10-5g/m2/day, with good transparency and adhesion.

Dr Yan says that roll-to-roll organic printing is real, and OLED lighting is getting closer. OLEDs are still around 15 times more expansive than conventional lighting, but the price will drop in time, and OLEDs will get cheaper than LEDs because of roll-to-roll printing and potentially cheaper materials.

IDTechEx believes that it will take between 5 to 10 years for OLEDs to become cost effective. But even before that OLEDs can be used in high-value products and niches.

Via IDTechEx

Visionox shows new OLED lighting and display prototypes

oled — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:48:09 -0400

Visionox (a Chinese company) is showing new 'decorative' OLED lighting and display prototypes. There's an OLED lamp, and an OLED digital photo frame.

Visionox say they have achieved the following technology breakthroughs:

Long lifetime (over 100,000 hours halftime at brightness of 1000 cd/m2) fluorescent white OLEDs with a composite blue emitting structure.
Highly efficient hybrid OLEDs with an efficiency of over 40 lm/W at the brightness of 1000 cd/m2 without any light out-coupling technology.
Flexible OLED lighting and transparent OLED lighting samples.

Visionox say that their decorative OLED-Lighting products are actually available in small volumes. They hope to enter the general lighting markets in a few years.

The lamps look very much like the TOPLESS project lamp prototypes (shown back in August).

Samsung and LG show new transparent OLED prototypes

oled — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:11:29 -0400

Both Samsung and LG are showing new transparent OLED prototypes. The LG one is a 15" panel, aimed for "public places". LG does not have any plans to commercialize it yet.

LG 15-inch transparent OLED prototype

Samsung showed a smaller (2") transparent OLED, with a 176x220 resolution at 141ppi. The luminance is 300 cd/m²for the top emission and 100cd/m² for the bottom emission.

Samsung 2-inch transparent OLED prototype

Via Tech-On

OSRAM shows new totally transparent OLED lighting panels

oled — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:45:57 -0400

OSRAM are announcing new advances in their transparent OLED lighting panels. They have developed a large (17x17 cm2, with a 210cm2 luminous area) transparent OLED, which is only a few hundred micrometers thick. The samples have been developed as part of the TOPAS project (scheduled to produce a 1 meter-square OLED module by 2011).

OSRAM says that there is a "clear demand" for large, low-profile transparent light sources.

UDC awarded two OLED lighting small projects from the DOE

oled — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:24:22 -0400

Universal Display Corporation say they have been awarded two new Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I $100,000 programs for OLED lighting from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE):

In the first project, UDC will demonstrate a very high-efficiency white PHOLED lighting device. Universal Display’s goal is to demonstrate further gains in power efficiency, exceeding its prior research milestone of 102 lumens per watt.
In the second project, UDC will demonstrate a white PHOLED using the company’s novel OLED permeation barrier technology. The Company, working with Princeton University, recently demonstrated a material system that forms an ultra-hermetic, flexible and transparent environmental barrier for OLEDs. This may provide a cost-effective packaging solution for high-volume, low-cost manufacture of white OLED lighting devices.

Philips displayed some new OLED lamp designs

oled — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:49:32 -0400

Philips has displayed some new OLED lighting designs at the 100% design fair in London. There are also some new panel shapes in there. Here are a few photos and a video of the new OLEDs:

Fraunhofer: interactive data eyeglasses with OLED microdisplays in 2 years

oled — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 02:18:43 -0400

A couple of month ago, the Fraunhofer institute has shown their interactive data eyeglasses. These glasses include an OLED microdisplay on a CMOS chip that also includes an eye tracker. They now say that such devices could be ready within 2 years.

More information on the OLED device can be found here. Basically, the idea is a bi-directional OLED - which is a display and a camera in one chip. They put photo-diodes between the OLED pixels.

CombOLED transparent white OLED video

oled — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:51:50 -0400

A few weeks ago, the CombOLED project (together with CEA-LETI, a French research laboratory) has announced a new efficient transparent white OLED. They have sent us a short video clip now of this display:

This is a Small-Molecule OLED, with a 5x5 cm2 active emitting area, which is deposited using thermal evaporation and encapsulated using ultra-thin layers. It's about 65%-70% transparent. More information on this panel can be found here.

Hopefully we'll be able to bring more information from CombOLED soon.