Jun 22 2009
DuPont today announced the development of its new, proprietary "Gen-3" solution-based organic light emitting diode (OLED) materials technology that can last a record lifetime of more than 1 million hours - equivalent to over 100 years of constant use.
The milestone achievement for the Gen-3 green OLED material has led to substantial performance gains for printable OLED light-emitting materials, while two new Gen-3 solution blue materials also have been developed that set new standards for longevity and color. These OLED materials can meet or exceed the performance of today's vapor deposited materials, and are paving the way for manufacturers to develop future low-cost OLED displays for use in mobile devices, notebook PCs and televisions.
"Printing OLEDs significantly lowers the cost to manufacture displays, and with our advances in material technology, display manufacturers can see the material lifetimes and performance required for commercialization," said William Feehery, global business director -- DuPont OLED Displays. "With lifetime five times better than just a couple years ago, these new materials will allow solution OLEDs to be used in mobile displays, and also to begin to penetrate the television and general lighting markets at a lower cost than today's evaporated OLED technology."
Although green material lifetimes already exceed those of red and blue, the significance is that in a display, green contributes more to the white brightness. The longer lifetime also can lead to an increase in total display lifetime.
Historically, performance of blue light-emitting materials has been the most challenging, however, DuPont Gen 3 solution blue materials are demonstrating significant performance gains. One of the blue materials has demonstrated a lifetime of 38,000 hours, which is one of the longest blue OLED material lifetimes publicly reported. A second material has been developed with exceptionally deep blue color coordinates, with a lifetime of approximately 41,000 hours. As commonly reported in the industry, materials lifetimes refers to the time for the luminance to decrease to half the initial value starting from 1,000 cd/m2, as estimated from accelerated tests.
According to DisplaySearch, the total OLED display market is forecasted to grow to $5.5 billion by 2015, from $600 million in 2008, with a compound annual growth rate of 37 percent. DisplaySearch also forecasts that in 2015, televisions will pass mobile phone main displays to become the highest-revenue application at $1.92 billion.