Universal Display Corporation, an OLED manufacturer based in Princeton, NJ, has been awarded a two-year, $750,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a novel white OLED light source.
In this program entitled, "High Efficiency White TOLED Devices for Lighting Applications," UDC is employing its proprietary TOLED® transparent OLED technology to demonstrate a novel lighting concept with improved light extraction.
In a conventional OLED, only approximately 25-30% of the light generated in the device is emitted to the viewer. Technologies to extract more of the light generated as useable light emission are important for achieving the performance required for OLEDs in lighting applications.
During the Phase I program, Universal Display demonstrated a 20% enhancement in the amount of light extracted from an OLED by using its TOLED structure integrated with an external reflector. During this follow-on Phase II, the company intends to optimize the performance of this novel design for white lighting applications.
"We are very pleased to receive this US Department of Energy Phase II contract to continue exploring novel approaches to achieve improved OLED performance leveraging our proprietary TOLED and PHOLED technology platforms," says Steven Abramson, president and COO of Universal Display Corporation.
"Through the ingenuity of our team at Universal Display, this novel lighting concept may be a significant step toward demonstrating the requisite performance for use in residential, commercial and industrial lighting applications."
White OLEDs have the potential to generate light more energy-efficiently than traditional light sources. With general lighting consuming over 20% of U.S. energy resources, white OLEDs may provide important new opportunities for significant energy and cost savings on a national as well as global basis.
OLEDs today are emerging as flat panel displays in cell phones and other portable electronic devices, and are also under development for large-area TV applications. With the advances underway through this and other US Department of Energy programs, OLEDs may also become an important solid-state lighting technology for a plethora of general lighting applications.
