OLEDWORKS LLC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase II: 09b

Description

OLED luminaires have been available commercially for several years, with relatively slow adoption into commercial and consumer lighting fixtures in the US due to higher cost and lower performance than LED luminaires.This project addresses both issues through the commercialization of a cost effective high efficacy bendable OLED lighting panel based on thin glass.The most significant benefit of OLED lighting to the US could be economic.OLEDWorks manufactures the highest brightness, longest lifetime, most efficient, highest quality OLED lighting panels in the world.Its current commercially available rigid OLED light engines were designed and developed and are assembled at its headquarters in Rochester, New York.Many of the world leading OLED luminaire manufacturers are also located in the US and work closely with OLEDWorks.From this position of strength, the US can maintain a technological advantage that can grow both US manufacturing jobs and export sales.The Phase I project developed a high efficacy white OLED lighting device based on thin glass that demonstrated the proof of concept.The high efficacy white OLED prototype included printed internal light extraction layers, silver nanowire transparent anodes, and formulation changes to the OLED organic layers to achieve high efficacy.The technology developed for the light extraction and anode layers has the potential to reduce the cost of OLED lighting since it is compatible with low cost roll-to-roll production methods.This Phase II effort will continue the technological progress made in Phase I including improvements to the printable light extraction, transparent anode, OLED formulation, and bendable glass substrates.The efficacy of the OLED panel will be increased to at least 100 lm/W with lifetimes exceeding 100,000 hours.We will also address manufacturability and scalability of the technology.If all the improvements in this Phase II proposal can be accomplished, the size of the lighting market that will be available to OLED luminaire manufacturers will drastically increase beyond the high-end niche market of today into the main stream commercial and consumer markets, there-by achieving the promise predicted by the DOE for a mixture of LED and OLED solid state lighting that will significantly reduce energy consumption for lighting while simultaneously improving the social and public benefits of solid state lighting and the economic opportunities for US lighting manufacturers.