The US National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), on behalf of the US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the selection of 16 applications in response to two recent funding opportunity announcements.
Both the Core Technologies funding opportunity announcement and the National Laboratory Call are intended to support multiple enabling or fundamental solid-state lighting technology areas for general illumination applications.
The sixteen selections are anticipated to significantly contribute to the goal of the SSL program:"By 2025, develop advanced solid-state lighting technologies that, compared to conventional lighting technologies, are much more energy efficient, longer lasting, and cost competitive by targeting a product system efficiency of 50 percent with lighting that accurately reproduces sunlight spectrum."
The present selections are expected to fill key technology gaps, provide enabling knowledge or data, and represent a significant advancement in the SSL technology base. The knowledge gained from the new selections will contribute to SSL technology maturation, helping to advance SSL from applied research to market acceptance, as targets for efficiency, cost, longevity, stability, and control are demonstrated in a product environment.
The selections are remain subject to negotiation, and are all covered by the Exceptional Circumstances Determination issued by DOE in June 2005.
Core Technologies FOA Selections - LEDs
Recipient: Eastman Kodak Company
Title: Quantum-Dot Light Emitting Diode
Summary: The applicant is creating low cost inorganic light emitting diodes, composed of quantum dot emitters and inorganic nanoparticles.
Recipient: Purdue University
Title: Low-Cost Substrates for High-Performance Nanorod Array LEDs
Summary: This project is designed to exploit the relief of lattice mismatch strain and the expulsion of dislocations that are characteristic of nanoheteroepitaxy – the growth of heteroepitaxial device structures on nanoscale substrates.
Recipient: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Title: High Performance Green LEDs by Homoepitaxial MOVPE
Summary: The applicant proposes to improve the efficiency of deep-green LEDs by a factor of 2-3. This project plans to fill this “green gap” by addressing the challenges of high dislocation densities in the active region, huge polarization field effects throughout the LED structure, and high epi production cost.
Recipient: RTI International
Title: Photoluminescent Nanofibers for High-Efficiency Solid-State Lighting
Summary: The RTI approach is an improved secondary converter comprised of quantum dots (QDs) embedded in high surface area polymer nanofibers to create a photoluminescent nanofiber ( PLN ). RTI indicates that PLNs dramatically improve the external quantum efficiency, color rendering properties, and lifetimes of SSL devices incorporating this technology.
Recipient: Technologies and Devices International, Inc.
Title: Ultra High p-Doping Material Research for GaN-based Light Emitters
Summary: The project is focused on material research for highly doped p-type GaN materials and device structures for applications in high efficiency light emitters for general illumination.
Recipient: University of California , Santa Barbara
Title: High-Efficiency Nitride-Based Photonic Crystal Light Sources
Summary: UCSB proposes to maximize the efficiency of a white LED by enhancing the external quantum efficiency using photonic crystals to extract light that would normally be confined in a conventional structure.
Recipient: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
Title: Advanced Processing Techniques for Solid-State Light Sources for General Illumination
Summary: The applicant uses a sacrificial substrate technique which will support a number of complimentary growth and processing techniques to improve the overall external quantum efficiency of GaN devices.
Core Technologies FOA Selections – OLEDs
Recipient: Agiltron, Inc.
Title: Next Generation Hole Injection/Transport Nano-Composites for High Efficiency OLED Development
Summary: This proposal seeks to improve the electrical efficiency of OLEDs through the use of a novel nano-composite coating material for the anode coating/hole transport layer. The specific objective of this proposed research is an OLED with 60-80 lm/W with a CRI above 90 that lasts more than 10,000 hours.
Recipient: University of Florida
Title: High Efficiency Microcavity Blue Emitting OLED Devices with Down-Conversion Phosphors for Solid-State Lighting
Summary: This ambitious project seeks to improve the overall performance of OLEDs. The applicant expects to fabricate devices by way of three thrusts with efficacies exceeding 100 lm/W with a CRI of greater than 90.
Recipient: University of North Texas
Title: Multi-Faceted Scientific Strategies Toward Better Solid-State Lighting for Phosphorescent OLEDs
Summary: This applicant proposes to improve the performance of OLEDs by carefully and systematically designing and synthesizing multiple classes of molecular phosphorescent materials in order to control and improve the photoluminescent and electroluminescent properties of these emitters.
Laboratory Call Selections - LEDs
Recipient: Sandia National Laboratories
Title: Innovative Strain-Engineered InGaN Materials for High-Efficiency Deep-Green Light Emission
Summary: This proposal seeks to achieve higher internal quantum efficiency for deep green LEDs by developing strain relaxed InGaN templates. These templates will be grown either by using novel strain relaxation techniques or strain relaxing epitaxial lateral overgrowth techniques.
Recipient: Sandia National Laboratories
Title: Novel ScGaN and YGaN Alloys for High Efficiency Light Emitters
Summary: The main thrust of this proposal seeks to address the issue of poor internal quantum efficiency of deep green emitters, through the use of novel elements alloyed with the InGaN to produce quantum wells that more efficiently emit green light. Alloying the elements of scandium (Sc) and ytrium (Y) with GaN is expected to produce LEDs that can emit from the UV range to the IR.
Recipient: Sandia National Laboratories
Title: Development of a Bulk Gallium Nitride Growth Technique for Low Defect Density Large-Area Native Substrates
Summary: The objective of this proposal is to develop a novel, scalable, and cost-effective growth technique for producing low dislocation density bulk GaN substrates for SSL. Development of low dislocation density bulk GaN for regrowth of GaN SSL will improve the internal quantum efficiency of current GaN devices.
Laboratory Call Selections - OLEDs
Recipient: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Title: High Efficiency Long Lifetime OLEDs with Stable Cathode Nanostructures
Summary: The objective of this proposal is to develop improved cathodes for use with OLED devices. Improvements of the OLED cathode would lead to higher efficiency devices with longer operating lifetimes.
Recipient: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Title: Novel High Work Function Transparent Conductive Oxides for Organic Solid-State Lighting Using Combinatorial Techniques
Summary: The applicants propose to use a systematic approach to develop new transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) to be used with OLEDs. Developing new TCOs could enable OLEDs to use novel dopants that demonstrate high internal quantum efficiency.
Recipient: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Title: High Quality Low Cost Transparent Conductive Oxides
Summary: Utilizing the Polymer Assisted Deposition (PAD) technique developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the team will develop new and more cost effective routes to transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) for OLEDs. The goal is to prepare TCOs that are suitable for OLED development, cost effective, and employ sustainable materials.
