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Are OLEDs the Future of Lighting?

June 6th, 2008

Everyone in the electronics industry is familiar with OLEDs in the context of the next generation flat panel displays. That’s not what this article is about. Rather, it is about the prospects of applying this new technology to lighting - and the potential impact of this on society. Why the grandiose language? Lighting accounts for about 19% of global energy consumption. Given the skyrocketing price of oil, any lighting technology that is more efficient than the incandescent light bulb is on track for huge product demand.

Art Berman
Insight Media Consultant

In that regard, OLED based lighting is a particularly viable candidate. It uses less energy than the incandescent light bulb and they do not contain toxic mercury as do fluorescent lamps. Light Emitting Diodes are also often mentioned as a candidate to replace incandescent light bulbs but produce light that is highly directional. So, for illumination purposes, some kind of dispersal panel is required and this cuts into the efficiency of lighting products based on LED technology.

Other characteristics of OLED based lighting are also attractive. The white light emitted by an OLED is actually a combination of organic materials that emit red, green and blue light. In this way, the color and brightness of the light produced by the device can be adjusted by changing the relative voltages applied to these materials. Since the entire surface emits, the product can be fashioned into a variety of form factors that are impossible to produce using a point or linear light source.

One company active in the field of OLED lighting is General Electric Co. GE recently announced the status of a four year, $13 million program to develop a new way to manufacture OLEDs based on a roll-to-roll process. "Our goal (of making OLEDs at a cost) of $40 square meter is in reach," declared Juliana Shei of the GE Global Research Center (www.ge.com/research). Since it takes three or four fluorescent tubes to illuminate one square meter of space in an office, a $40 per square meter price point makes OLEDs only slightly more expensive.

In a separate effort, GE is working to boost the light emitting efficiency of its OLEDs in cooperation with Konica Minolta Holdings, combining its roll-to-roll production technology with Konica Minolta’s technologies for photo sensitive materials, amassed over years of experience with camera film.

In Europe, a group of companies have joined forces in the so called OLLA Project (www.hitech-projects.com/euprojects/olla/), formed to develop bright OLED lighting. Members of this project include Philips Electronics, Siemens and Merck KGaA. Smaller companies are also developing OLED illumination systems. One example is Novaled which has developed an OLED headlight for Mercedes Benz cars.

Interest in OLED lighting is also growing rapidly in Japan, where the government has initiated a policy of fostering low energy lighting. In early April, the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Akira Amari, announced that residential use of incandescent light bulbs would be ended by 2012. According to market research firm Fuji Keizai, OLED lighting will cross paths and surpass incandescent light bulbs as a source of lighting in Japan’s homes in 2011.

In response to these incentives, three companies have joined forces to develop OLED lighting in a program being promoted by the government-affiliated New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization. The three companies are Matsushita Electric Works, which has strength in the field of finished lighting products, Idemitsu Kosan, which has become a player in the field of organic electroluminescent materials, and Tazmo, which boasts a large share of the market for the film forming machinery used in the manufacture of LCD panels. Nippon Steel Chemical has begun supplying organic electroluminescent materials to this project.

In other Japan-based OLED illumination activity, a joint venture called Lumiotec was established by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Rohm, Toppan Printing and Mitsui, in collaboration with Professor Junji Kido of Yamagata University Graduate School. The new company is based in Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture and, at this time, is operating with 20 employees assigned from each holding company.

MHI will provide manufacturing equipment, Rohm will develop application devices, Toppan will develop finishing process including light delivery technology, with Mitsui supporting marketing and Kido providing technical support. MHI developed in line vacuum deposition equipment for volume production of OLED lighting systems in 2007. The joint venture is targeting production in three years.

Thomas Edison invented the commercial power generator in order to help promote the popularization of the light bulb after he established a way to mass-produce the product. Now, 130 years later, the situation has changed so much that the incentive to conserve electricity could fuel the popularization of OLED lighting.

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