Flexible environmental barrier technology for OLEDs

Protecting Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) from moisture and oxygen remains the key technical challenge for fabricating flexible, solid-state lighting displays with acceptable service lifetimes. Although OLED-based displays on flexible PET polymer substrates have been demonstrated, they exhibit poor operating lifetimes due to atmospheric exposure. This project will develop a high-throughput, low-temperature, thin-film environmental barriers on PET polymer substrates, in order to lower costs and reduce permeation rates. In Phase I, an energetic thin film deposition process will be used to demonstrate the feasibility of producing low-defect-density, ceramic barrier films suitable for OLED devices on PET substrates. The goal is to produce ceramic/PET single-layer barriers with low defect density and a low water vapor transmission rate. Phase II will focus on further optimization of barrier properties, accelerated environmental testing of encapsulated PV cells, and integrating the barriers into the context of a production scale setting. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: The low-cost, high-throughput roll-to-roll deposition of effective thin-film moisture barriers would represent a key enabling technology for increasing lifetimes in OLED-based lighting, which could provide the impetus to allow the U.S. to gradually shift to LED and OLED-based lighting. In 2001, 30% of the electricity consumption in buildings was due to lighting.