OLED lighting - OLED light bulb

OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) are materials that emit light when current is passed through them. OLED are used today to make beautiful and efficient displays, but it is also possible to use the technology to create white light.

OLEDs are very power efficient and they can be made very thin. An OLED light bulb is actually a thin film of material that emits bright white light. Because OLEDs can be flexible, or even transparent, exciting new OLED lamp designs are possible.

OLED lighting - the green light source

Not only are OLEDs super efficient, but these 'lamps' do not contain any 'bad' metals such as mercury, which is present in efficient CFL lamps. So OLEDs are really the future lighting source, when all things are considered.

What's on the market today

There are three companies that already offer OLED panels: Philips, Osram and Japan's Lumiotec. These are just 'design samples' currently that carry a very high price. But designers can get panels to play with, waiting till the companies lower their prices and start making commercial OLED Lighting panels.

OSRAM: The world's first OLED lamp

In April 2008, OSRAM has announced the world's first OLED lamp. It was designed by lighting designer Ingo Maurer, uses 10 OLED light panels, sized 132 x 33 millimeters. The OLED bulb in this lamp are actually thin square sheets...This lamp is actually more of a prototype - only 25 will be made, and the price is more than 25,000euro. But it sure is an important milestone on the path for OLED lighting.

In November 2009 OSRAM has started to actually sell their first OLED panel, the ORBEOS. They offer one round panel (88mm diameter) with 25lm/W efficiency. The price is around $375. Here's our hands-on review of the ORBEOS.

OSRAM ORBEUS OLED Lighting panel

Philips OLED lighting panels

Philips are currently the leading company with regards to OLED lights. They will start shipping OLED samples panels (which can be ordered online). Check out our first OLED light review of a couple of panels they sent us. They have plans for commercial products by 2010.

Philips ceiling OLED lamp photo

Philips think that transparent and color-tunable OLEDs will be here within 3-5 years. Flexible ones? a bit longer, might take 5-8 years.

OLED lighting status

Several companies are working towards white OLED light products. Like we mentioned before, Philips are already shipping OLED samples panels (which can be ordered online), with 'commercial' panels available in 2010. OSRAM is also shipping their first OLED panel, the ORBEOS. In Japan, Lumiotec has also started to ship their own OLED Lighting development kits in February 2010.

GE is hoping to get products out by 2010 and China's Visionox have shown decorative OLED lighting prototypes - which they are actually shipping in "small volumes". They say that the decorative market is their first target, and general-lighting will only be addressed in a few years.

Visionox OLED lamp prototype

Other companies involved in white OLED lighting are Konica Minolta (plans to have products by 2011), Universal Display (WOLED technology), ModisTech and Pioneer (collaborating with Mitsubishi). The Fraunhofer institutes in Germany is also doing a lot of research into OLED light. Samsung are also working towards OLED Lighting, and LG Chem have recently joined the race, and wants to start mass production in 2H 2010.

Here's a nice chart by DisplaySearch, showing the leading companies and their annonced OLED lighting plans:

OLED lighting prediction by DisplaySearch

The EU is funding several OLED lighting projects, while in Japan a few companies have joined forces to create Lumiotec, which has already started to ship sample panels.

Latest stories about oled for Lighting:

Blackbody to show new OLED lamps designs

Blackbody will show new OLED lamp designs at the NOW! Maison & Objet Fair (September 3rd to 7th, 2010). All of the new lamps were designed by C+B Lefebvre. Those lamps are available to buy, but probably cost quite a bit. Here are my two favorites:

The first lamp (shown above) is called 6"O" with an active area of 540cm2, color temperature of 3200 K°, 26W power consumption and it weights 5.5Kg : "Providing both linear and surface illumination, this light bridge creates an enlightened area free of shadows and glare. This virtually tamed lighting offers both direct illumination whilst simultaneously bathing the surrounding area in a halo of soft light.

08/31/2010

Novaled launches "The OLED Lighting User’s Manual" market report

Novaled has launched a new OLED market report today, called the "OLED Lighting User’s Manual". This is a 200-pages guide/report to OLED lighting which provides an in-depth coverage of technical, marketing and practical aspects. The target audience is designers, luminaire makers, artists, engineers, planners and others involved in the lighting business. This report does not limit itself to a market analysis of materials, technologies and industry players. Instead, the emphasis is on providing an introduction to OLED lighting technology with a view to making and marketing lighting products.

You can order the report here.

08/24/2010

Nanomarkets to host a free OLED Lighting teleconference on September 8th

Nanomarkets will host a teleconference on September 8th with the firm's latest OLED Lighting market forecasts. The information presented will be from their latest OLED Lighting report (OLED Lighting: An Eight-Year Market Forecast 2010). You can register to the report (at no cost) here.

08/20/2010

UDC is showing some beautiful new OLED lamp prototypes

UDC is showing some new OLED lamp prototypes, some of these are very beautiful. The prototypes include a Christmas-tree decoration, flexible OLEDs and some 6" white-OLED panels. Here's my favorite one, a desk lamp that uses a thin (1/8" thick) panel. The head can rotate a full 360 degrees, and spins on thin carbon fiber. The lamp is dimmable:

08/13/2010

Konica-Minolta to start making flexible OLEDs in 2010?

OLEDNet reports the Konica-Minolta plans to start mass production of flexible OLED lighting panels in 2010. Konica-Minolta is cooperating with GE on manufacturing technology. According to the report, Konica Minolta is using polymer materials and printing technologies. The materials are made by Sumitomo. The lifetime of Konica-Minolta’s products is estimated to be 3,000 hours or more with the brightness of 1,000 cd/m2.

We think that this is a bit optimistic... according to KM's own plans, the first plant is scheduled for March 2011. Just last month they re-iterated their plans to start making the flexible OLEDs in 2011, and we do not think this will qualify as 'mass production'. We also know that KM is using UDC's Small-Molecule Phosphorescent materials, but maybe they are also working with Sumitomo on Polymer based OLEDs.