SBIR Phase I: Enhanced Light Generation in Printed Displays

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will stem from the advancement of material processing techniques for carbon-containing (organic) materials. Carbon is ubiquitous on Earth and conveys to materials made from it a variety of strategic and technical advantages. Advances in chemistry and materials science are increasing the utility of organic materials in the semiconductor industry. This is enabling organic materials to replace rare metals which can be ecologically damaging to mine or must be sourced from politically sensitive parts of the world. The $100 Billion display industry is leading this revolution with the commercialization of the organic light emitting diode (OLED). Critical weaknesses make the manufacturing of OLEDs extremely expensive, especially for large displays. The result is an industry-wide effort to move away from conventional semiconductor manufacturing techniques and to printing. Printed OLED displays are substantially less expensive but are 50% less power efficient. As a result, they are not suitable for devices reliant on battery power. This limits their commercial potential to less than 25% of the total display market. The proposed project will leverage recent discoveries in the properties of organic materials to develop a new processing technique for printed OLEDs. Incumbent OLED manufacturing technology orients the light emitting component of the device in a way which maximizes power efficiency. This is not currently possible in printed displays. We will develop new methods of depositing thin films of OLED materials to create oriented emitters. Based on the results of experiments, we will gain knowledge of the fundamental mechanism which enables molecular orientation in solution deposited thin films. We will use this mechanism to demonstrate that our processing technique is compatible with the display printing supply chain and facilitate future integration of our technology into OLED printers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.