The LED Lights

OLEDs grow big enough for lighting

The European OLED100 project has demonstrated a large OLED lighting panel.

Measuring 33×33cm, and with an active area of 828cm2, the panel was developed by the project partners and made at Fraunhofer IPMS on an in-line pre-pilot tool.

“We intended to show that we can up-scale to larger area in a process that is mass manufacture compatible,” OLED100 project manager Dr Stefan Grabowski told Electronics Weekly.

Lifetime testing still under way, and predicted lifetime from 1,000cd/m2, wearing to 700cd/m2, is well beyond 1,000 hours so far, said Grabowski.

Techniques include screen printing the metallisation for contacts and bus bars on to the glass substrate.

However, not all the processes are quite so factory-ready and at the moment the device has a cavity glass lid to keep oxygen and moisture from the vulnerable OLED and electrode materials
Click Here

“We are working on thin-film encapsulation, which is cheaper,” said Grabowski

Efficacy is more than 25 lm/W, not enough for lighting, but impressive for an OLED.

High efficiency OLEDs are another thread in the project, which will eventually be combined with the large area processing, said Grabowski.

The picture shows the 33×33cm panel in the foreground, in front of the projects previous area demonstrator which has four 15×15cm panels.