OLED Technology

History - It dates back to the 1950'6 where researchers at the University de Nancy France produced electroluminescence in organic materials by applying a high voltage ac to crystalline thin films. DOW Chemical Co. followed in the 1960's. it is generally acknowledged that Kodak discovered the first diode OLED in the late 1970's.

Possible Uses - Advancements have been made since then by Kodak and many other companies. the development of P-OLED's light emitting polymers that can be used for display screens with a wide range of colors used for information management, communications and entertainment. Other applications i have read about are the possible uses illuminating room switches, desk drawers, interior lighting on vehicles and underwater lighting. For us underwater lighting would be important because our signage has to be able to withstand forces of nature.

An interesting lamp design by Makoto Tojiki named the Archimedes Dream, is quite cool in showing the luminescence it has to offer, but it seems that it would need to be dark for its glow to really show through.

Lifetime - Some of the products from Cambridge Display Technologies can last from 25,000 to 400,000 hours depending on the amount of cd/[m.sup.2] used. (i am not sure what that means, but i think its a way of measuring how strong the light is, i will be looking further into that)

Part of the problem with flexible OLED technology is that the lifetime of it isn't very long. as seen on youtube videos, they get glitches of lines running horizontally and vertically. although it is a cool technology but it is not as ready for the market as non flexible ones.

Market - Some market research predicts that it will be a 1.1 Billion dollar industry by 2015 for being used for many applications and some Government Funded R&D projects. This is the NEXT BIG thing. In my research, there are several big companies trying to get a handle on this technology for its possible wide use.

Efficiency - The reason why it is so efficient is because it uses no backlight. Most LCD screens need to have a backlight and work by blocking out spots on that backlight to produce the desired display.

With OLED technology, the diode just lights up in its proper place. It is for this reason that you can achieve extremely energy efficient and ultra slim designs.

Take for example Sony's path on using OLED technology for TV Screens. Some that were displayed at a show were 10mm thick for a 27" and 3mm thick for the 11" tv's. They have a 1,000,000 to 1 ratio meaning that the black is the blackest of black, and the white is the whitest of white color, with every color we can possibly see in between.

One way to achieve brighter colors is to double stack OLED displays on top of each other. Universal Display Corporation did this and was able to provide a device that achieved 102 Lumen per Watt. But it was a white light and not some of the other colors we will need.