Recovery Act - Large-Scale, Low-Cost, Nano-Structure Fabrication For High Efficiency Solid State Lighting

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes research into the feasibility of scaling the fabrication of efficiency-enhancing nanostructures used for organic light emitting diodes, or OLEDs, to enable low-cost solid-state lighting (SSL). Of specific interest in this DOE-ITP Nanomanufacturing Initiative opportunity is the potential for OLED-based SSLs to be inexpensively produced in large area formats compatible with the US industrial base. In addition, such low-cost, large format SSL would not only realize dramatic energy savings for US manufacturers, but would play a significant role in reducing worldwide energy consumption, and lead to a healthy commercial market. Today the incorporation of a wide variety of surface relief textures as part of the OLED structure has been shown in numerous laboratory demonstrations to increase the light extraction efficiency many times over. Much of this work has focused on micro-scale structures such as microlenses and diffraction gratings that reduce light losses generated by only part of the OLED structure. One recent study showed that a micro-scale grid pattern within the organic emitter materials could produce dramatic increases in light extraction efficiency. This study showed that further increases in extraction efficiency might be obtained by decreasing the size of the grid to the nano-scale where the grid structures were all smaller than the wavelengths of visible light. TelAztec has been developing large-scale, low-cost origination and replication methods for such sub-wavelength surface relief textures for numerous applications in sensors, displays, and high energy lasers. For this Phase I effort, TelAztec will design and fabricate sub-wavelength sized nano-structures within the organics layer of existing OLED structures using established scalable manufacturing processes. In collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and ARKEMA Corporation, OLED prototypes incorporating several nano-structure variants will be produced and evaluated for light extraction efficiency. In a Phase II effort, several SSL manufacturers will be engaged to produce large scale nano-structured OLED light panels that are further combined with other light extraction enhancement methods such as TelAztec