Novel High Performance OLED Lighting Sources

70936B02-II Conventional sources of general illumination are relatively inefficient and produce a significant amount of heat. New sources of solid state lighting, based on high efficiency phosphorescent organic light emitting devices (PHOLEDs) offer the potential for significant energy savings and other environmental benefits. This project will further develop two novel approaches to use high efficiency PHOLEDs to produce white lighting sources. The first approach uses a single dopant electrophosphorescent organic light emitting device that produces white light through the formation of two distinct monomer and excimer emitting species. In the second approach, low-cost, high-efficiency, general illumination OLED light sources, comprising a series of striped PHOLEDs, will be fabricated. Phase 1 demonstrated the technical feasibility of the two novel approaches to produce white lighting sources. Specifically, with fabricated striped R-G-B light sources, it was demonstrated that stripe widths of 2mm appear featureless through a diffuser and that stripe pitches of 0.5mm will not present undesirable features as a lighting source. Also, a monomer-excimer single dopant white light source achieved greater than 8 lm/W at 500 cd/m2, and a path to achieve >100 lm/W with PHOLEDs was designed. Phase II will: (1) demonstrate a monomer-excimer based white PHOLED light source on a glass substrate with an efficiency of 20 lm/W at a luminance of 800 cd/m2; (2) further develop white PHOLED light sources based on a series of monochrome striped light sources to achieve the same performance; and (3) demonstrate and deliver 6¿ x 6¿ prototype lighting panels based on both striped and monomer-excimer PHOLED lighting sources. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by awardee: The technology should enable high efficiency phosphorescent light sources to become a viable technology for general illumination. It is anticipated that these improvements will form the basis for the introduction of commercial OLED lighting products.