White Illumination Sources Using Striped Phosphorescent OLEDs

70936 General lighting is responsible for more than 20% of U.S. energy consumption; therefore, new broadband white lighting sources could offer significant improvements in power efficiency and color quality with less environmental impact than traditional incandescent and fluorescent lights. Recent breakthroughs in highly-efficient phosphorescent organic lighting emitting device (OLED) technology offer a solution, but significant engineering challenges remain to achieve the necessary targets in power efficiency, operating lifetime, and manufacturing costs. This project will demonstrate and develop high-efficiency broadband white light sources using a striped configuration of red-, green- and blue- phosphorescent OLEDs. Phase I will demonstrate a white source with excellent color quality, CIE (0.33,0.33), a Color Rendering Index greater than 75, and power efficiency greater than four lumens/Watt at lighting luminance levels of 800 cd/m2. These results would surpass other reported white OLED results to date. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as describe by the awardee: Low cost, energy-efficient, color tunable, long-lived, solid-state white organic light emitting devices (OLED), built on flexible plastic film, should find application in diffuse lighting applications in commercial, residential, and industrial sectors. Its thin, lightweight form also should allow the use of this product in novel architectural, automotive, and wearable electronic applications.