OLED lighting industry: entering the "arms race" stage

OLED has compelling advantages in the field of lighting. Compared with the traditional incandescent lamp, OLED light will not become hot, and heat dissipation by the loss of less energy. The experimental results show that the luminous efficiency of the new OLED is 5 times that of incandescent lamp, and the luminous efficiency is higher than that of the standard low energy consumption lamps. Compared with the traditional light source, OLED consumes less power, therefore, consumers in the future use of OLED can greatly reduce electricity costs.

According to a report released by Nano, a market research firm, in September 2008, the world scale of OLED for lighting and light sources is forecast to reach $4 billion 500 million in 2013, and will grow to $5 billion 900 million by the year of 2015. In 2008 the general lighting service life level of OLED has been improved from 24 thousand hours to 100 thousand hours; and the U.S. Department of energy (DOE) had predicted that the 2014 OLED general lighting luminous efficiency can reach 150 lm/W; due to the recent development accelerated, revised in 2012.

Nano Markets according to these performance improvements, forecasts the general lighting market size of OLED by 2015 will reach $2 billion 300 million. As for the development of light emitting surface, flexible design of lighting appliances, etc.. Nano Markets forecast these special light source (intelligent lighting equipment, industrial equipment) OLED market size will reach $1 billion 900 million by 2015.

OLED has been published in the design of lighting companies, such as the German Ingo Maurer using OSRAM GmbH (OSRAM Opto Semiconductors) Company OLED. The United States GE (General ELectronic) company is made with OLED lighting of the Christmas tree, and the use of Roll to Roll printing technology made lighting using OLED components, the production cost is low, thus unlimited expansion of the next generation of lighting.

Arms race"

In view of the broad prospects of OLED in the field of lighting, the major lighting companies have entered the field, and in the research and development of technology to start a new arms race".

In November 27, 2008, Basf Inc (BASF) and OSRAM Opto Semiconductors jointly developed white organic light emitting diodes with a high efficiency (OLED): the OLED for the first time can be issued more than 60 lumens / watt light, also reached the International Energy Star SSL standard "color requirements. Although this level of luminous efficiency (luminous efficiency refers to the light emitted by the lamp and the ratio between the consumption of electricity; the stronger the light, the less the loss of energy So far, the color value of OLED has not been able to meet the requirements of the "" standard of the "Energy Star SSL standard". The new OLED has realized the color value in the range of the light, which can keep the intensity of different grades of white light.

After all, large enterprises significantly accelerate the OLED lighting development pace, Germany IAPP, Matsushita Electric, Konica Minolta technology center, Japan Showa denko enterprises and research institutions have published the latest research results, see table 1. It is foreseeable that in the future there will be more companies, institutions and investors to enter the field, the technology will be more intense competition, and no doubt, this will promote OLED lighting technology into people's lives faster.

Table 1: the latest research results of OLED lighting

OLED lighting with white LED is still a gap of 2 years

From the efficiency point of view, OLED lighting in the R & D level with the white LED about a 2 year gap, such as the United States in June 2008 UDC issued a luminous efficiency of 102 lm/W, white LED and published in March 2006 Nichia chemical industries of the same level. Life with the initial brightness half-life of 1000cd/m2, 2006, life is about 10 thousand hours, after adjusting the structure of materials and components, up to 100 thousand hours in May 2008 to 2007, there have been 200 thousand hours of life.

The cost is close to the practical level, the first stage to the white LED and equivalent level; to begin mass production unit cost reduced to 4 yen to the brightness of about /lm; the ultimate goal must be reduced to 1 yen /lm, the level of hope in 2015.

OLED luminescent material is the development difficulty

The main focus of the development of OLED light emitting materials is to improve the efficiency of lighting and bring energy saving. In the OLED light-emitting materials which now reached the mainstream level of production of fluorescent materials. From the point of view of material life, durability and reliability, TV is still the mainstream of fluorescent materials.

If the past requires high delicacy, low power consumption trend, but also on OLED light emitting material requirements with low power consumption, further more, in order to comply with this requirement, the luminous efficiency of fluorescent material with phosphorescent material 4 times is the best choice. OSRAM's new OLED uses phosphorescent metal complexes as light emitting materials, but also contains specially developed auxiliary materials to ensure the best color temperature constant.

Use OLED to Color lighting Rendition high, high quality white OLED light source is best luminescent material on the development of such products, the Japanese proposal is mixed with Sanyo Electric fluorescent materials and phosphorescent materials. In other words, the blue fluorescent material, red and green phosphorescent material to achieve high-quality white light source.

The future, white OLED lighting fluorescent lamp to replace, must have the advantage of low cost, then the luminescent materials must all use of phosphorescent materials in order to achieve low power consumption, although technically extremely difficult.