Universal Display awarded US DOE SBIR phase I grant to advance phosphorescent OLED lighting

EWING, USA: Universal Display Corp., enabling energy-efficient displays and lighting with its UniversalPHOLED technology and materials, announced that the company has been awarded a new Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I $99,900 program from the US Department of Energy (DoE).

During this program, the Company will study the potential to enhance the performance of white PHOLED lighting devices in order to meet DOE requirements for general illumination applications.

Under a program titled “Thermal Management of High-Efficacy White Phosphorescent Organic Light Emitting Devices,” Universal Display will design and build white PHOLED lighting panels to evaluate the impact of operating temperature on performance. The adoption of the Company’s UniversalPHOLED technology and materials dramatically reduces the amount of heat generated during panel operation, as compared to the use of conventional fluorescence.

Operating at high brightness levels and over large areas may, however, still lead to small increases in the operating temperature of a panel. By effectively managing the relatively small amount of heat that is generated, the Company believes that it may further enhance OLED lighting performance, especially operating lifetime at the high luminance levels and with the large-area sizes required for general illumination.

The Company will use 6” x 6” panels as the first step toward understanding these issues. The outcome of this study may lead to subsequent opportunities to introduce novel thermal management technologies for enhanced performance of OLEDs for general illumination.

“White OLED lighting technology has the potential to replace existing inefficient lighting technologies and may lead to significant global energy and environmental benefits,” said Steven V. Abramson, president and CEO of Universal Display.

“Our highly energy-efficient phosphorescent OLED technology and materials, along with the efforts of our innovative team and the support of the US Department of Energy, have been responsible for the critical advances in OLED lighting technology that we have demonstrated over the last several years. We appreciate the DOE’s continued support of our work to drive the continuing development of white phosphorescent OLED lighting for general illumination.”

The DOE has made a long-term commitment to advance the development and introduction of energy-efficient white lighting sources for general illumination. According to industry estimates, electric bills for lighting alone are over $200 billion per year globally. It has been estimated that by 2016, white OLEDs could generate well over $20 billion in worldwide savings of electricity costs and could save over nine million metric tons of carbon emissions from the US alone.