German researchers achieved record efficiencies for OLED materials

A research group of the Dresden Technical University (together with Novaled) has achieved record energy consumption for OLEDs. The achievement brings the organic LED technology closer to industrial volume production, and these OLEDs are prototyped at the Fraunhofer ITMS.

The research team achieved an efficiency of 26, 22 and 3.1 percent for red, green and blue organic LEDs which combined form a white light source. The low efficiency for blue results of physical differences — while red and green OLEDs are phosphorescent light sources, their blue counterpart is a fluorescent one, resulting in lower light emission. The difference, however, can be compensated for by increasing the active size of the blue light emitter as well as sending a higher current through it, explained research group member Rico Meerheim.

In any case, the efficiency achieved is significantly higher than what was hitherto possible, in particular for the red light source. The OLED created by the Dresden team achieved a light intensity of 81, 101 and 4 lumen per watt.

Posted: Oct 29,2008 by Ron Mertens