Novel Low Cost Organic Vapor Jet Printing of Striped High Efficiency Phosphorescent OLEDs for White Lighting
In this program, Universal Display Corporation and University of Michigan proposed to integrate three innovative concepts to meet the DOE's Solid State Lighting (SSL) goals: (1) high-efficiency phosphorescent organic light emitting device (PHOLED{trademark}) technology, (2) a white lighting design that is based on a series of red, green and blue OLED stripes, and (3) the use of a novel cost-effective, high rate, mask-less deposition process called organic vapor jet printing (OVJP). Our PHOLED technology offers up to four-times higher power efficiency than other OLED approaches for general lighting. We believe that one of the most promising approaches to maximizing the efficiency of OLED lighting sources is to produce stripes of the three primary colors at such a pitch (200-500 {mu}m) that they appear as a uniform white light to an observer greater than 1 meter (m) away from the illumination source. Earlier work from a SBIR Phase 1 entitled 'White Illumination Sources Using Striped Phosphorescent OLEDs' suggests that stripe widths of less than 500 {mu}m appear uniform from a distance of 1m without the need for an external diffuser. In this program, we intend to combine continued advances in this PHOLED technology with the striped RGB lighting design to demonstrate a high-efficiency, white lighting source. Using this background technology, the team has focused on developing and demonstrating the novel cost-effective OVJP process to fabricate these high-efficiency white PHOLED light sources. Because this groundbreaking OVJP process is a direct printing approach that enables the OLED stripes to be printed without a shadow mask, OVJP offers very high material utilization and high throughput without the costs and wastage associated with a shadow mask (i.e. the waste of material that deposits on the shadow mask itself). As a direct printing technique, OVJP also has the potential to offer ultra-high deposition rates (> 1,000 Angstroms/second) for any size or shaped features. As a result, we believe that this work will lead to the development of a cost-effective manufacturing solution to produce very-high efficiency OLEDs. By comparison to more common ink-jet printing (IJP), OVJP can also produce well-defined patterns without the need to pattern the substrate with ink wells or to dry/anneal the ink. In addition, the material set is not limited by viscosity and solvent solubility. During the program we successfully demonstrated a 6-inch x 6-inch PHOLED lighting panel consisting of fine-featured red, green and blue (R-G-B) stripes (1mm width) using an OVJP deposition system that was designed, procured and installed into UDC's cleanroom as part of this program. This project will significantly accelerate the DOE's ability to meet its 2015 DOE SSL targets of 70-150 lumens/Watt and less than $10 per 1,000 lumens for high CRI lighting index (76-90). Coupled with a low cost manufacturing path through OVJP, we expect that this achievement will enable the DOE to achieve its 2015 performance goals by the year 2013, two years ahead of schedule. As shown by the technical work performed under this program, we believe that OVJP is a very promising technology to produce low cost, high efficacy, color tunable light sources. While we have made significant progress to develop OVJP technology and build a pilot line tool to study basic aspects of the technology and demonstrate a lighting panel prototype, further work needs to be performed before its full potential and commercial viability can be fully assessed.
- Research Organization:
- Universal Display Corporation
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC26-04NT42273
- OSTI ID:
- 985306
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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