OLED-TV|Laser-TV|SED|Display|FED|

SID 2007, California, US – 21 May, 2007 – OLED-T, a developer and manufacturer of world-class Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) materials and device structures, today announced a portfolio of OLED materials targeted at plastic displays.

OLED-T has demonstrated red, green and blue flexible single colour displays manufactured on a plastic substrate using its OLED materials. The demonstrator displays have been developed using a new family of materials developed by OLED-T that can be deposited by vacuum evaporation at manufacturing temperatures around 300oC. This relatively low temperature has enabled OLED-T to demonstrate flexible plastic OLEDs based on vacuum deposition for the first time.

To date OLED displays have been confined to glass substrates, limited by the relatively high manufacturing temperature of traditional OLED material deposition. The application of a flexible substrate instead of a rigid form factor such as glass in displays has long been a goal of the industry. A flexible or formable display would enable a new generation product design, removing the restrictions of a flat and planar format.

OLED-T is now focussing research and development effort on encapsulation methods to improve the lifetime of its plastic devices. The lifetime of the initial demonstrator red devices was 60 hours at a luminance of 100 cdm-2 and 72 hours for green devices. The limited lifetime is due to high moisture permeability. The corresponding devices manufactured on a glass substrate have lifetimes in excess of 32,000 hours for the same device structure.

“Flexible displays have long been a goal of the display industry. While there is clearly some way to go in terms of encapsulation to improve the lifetime of these devices, this initial announcement of demonstrator devices is incredibly exciting and represents a key milestone for OLED-T,” said Myrddin Jones, CEO, OLED-T.

The OLED-T family of materials suitable for plastic displays includes a hole injector, an electron transporter, and an electron injector.

Professor Poopathy Kathirgamanathan, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), OLED-T presented a paper on OLED-T’s work on plastic substrates titled ‘Low Temperature Evaporable Materials for the Production of Flexible OLEDs on Plastics’ at OLEDs Asia on 24 April 2007. The paper is available for download at: http://www.oled-t.com/blogs/technicalpapers.php.

OLED is developing into an important market for the display industry as well as the chemical industry. Materials are estimated to make-up 20 per cent of the value of the OLED supply chain. The worldwide flat panel display market was worth $70 billion in 2006 and is forecast to rise to $100 billion by 2010 according to major display analysts. OLED is the fastest growing non-LCD display technology and by 2010 it is predicted that it will be worth more than $2.5 billion.