Taiwan's organic chemicals maker Luminescence Technology (Lumtec) launched a new company called Lumlight to develop and produce OLED Lighting based products.
The company's first product is the OLED EyeCare Lamp, which uses an OLED panel to provide a healthy light source. Lumlight launched a crowdfunding campaign with an aim to raise $120,000 HKD (about $15,000 USD).
OLEDWorks introduced a new OLED lighting panel, the Brite Amber. This panel is free from any blue emission and OLEDWorks sees applications in the healthcare, senior living and residential markets. This upgrade to OLEDWorks' existing Amber panel features a higher brightness of 2,000 cd/m2.
The Brite AMber features an efficiency of over 50 lm/W and the lifetime is over 25,000 (but OLEDWOrks does not mention at what brightness level). The panel is 41.5 x 101.6 mm in size (active area 88 x 25 mm).
OLEDWorks latest panel is the Brite 2 - announced in March 2016. The Brite 2 offers a brightness of 300 lumens, a high CRI (>90) and an efficiency of 60 lm/W. According to the company's roadmap, OLEDWorks aims to release 80-100 lm/W flexible panels by next year.
By 2020, OLEDWorks' panels will have an efficiency of over 100 lm/W and a lifetime of over 50,000 hours (LT70).
The US Department of Energy (DoE) announced new SBIR and STTR grants for solid state lighting projects. The DoE announced five new grants out of which two are related to OLED technologies.
Pixelligent Technologies were awarded an SBIR project titled "Light Extraction for OLED Lighting with 3-D Gradient Index". This project will explore the application of a novel and unique 3D gradient index (GRIN) layer to improve the efficiency and lifetime of OLED devices. Using such a unique structure, OLEDs could be produced that achieve the theoretical maximum extraction efficiency.
The US DoE published a new CALiPER report made by the PNNL laboratory, with photometric testing, laboratory teardowns and accelerated lifetime testing of OLED luminaires. As you can see in the photo below, the four luminaries (from top-left, clockwise) are the OTI Aerelight, Acuity Brands Chalina and Acuity Brands Nomi (single panel and dual panel).
The report contains a lot of interesting information (see the link below to access the PDF). The PNNL researchers find that efficiency of OLED luminairies is still low compared to LED lamps - ranging from 23 lm/W to 45 lm/W. The OLED panels themselves are more efficient (42 - 55 lm/W) but the reduction in efficiency is mostly due to very inefficient transformer and driver selections and combinations.
OLEDWorks announced that the Brite 2 OLED panels are now available. The company's latest OLEDs, announced in March 2016, offer a brightness of 300 lumens, a high CRI (>90) and an efficiency of 60 lm/W.
The Brite 2 OLED comes in either 3000K or 4000K, and is now available as part of a promotion kit which includes four panels for $199.
In April 2016 Corning and OLEDWorks launched an OLED lighting design contest , calling designers to integrate thin, lightweight and cool-to-the-touch OLEDWorks lighting panels into functional luminaires that are practical yet creative.
Corning and OLEDWorks now announced the winners of this content - Matthew Boyko, Mike Garner from MSG Lighting, and Sadyr Khabukhayev. The winners were awarded $10,000 each for their innovative lighting luminaires which ranged in design from horizontal lighting arrays, to the integration of OLEDs into triangular storage modules, as well as a creative way to install OLED panels.
Visa Lighting introduced the company's first two OLED products, the Limit and Petal. These are two pendants lighting fixtures, each using three OLED panels that deliver a combined output of 850 lumens.
The panels offer a color temperature of 2900K and a CRI of 80. I'm not sure but these seems to be OLEDWorks/Philips Brite FL300 OLEDs. Visa Lighting did not reveal the pricing of these panels, nor the availability - but it's great to see another lighting maker adopt OLEDs.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced 13 new grants for building technology projects that promise to boost the efficiency of buildings.
One of those projects was granted to OLEDWorks, which will investigate novel blue OLED materials. The DoE did not give any more details for this project, but it did say that the award amount of each project was up to $150,000.
The newest developments in OLED technology were eagerly anticipated at this year’s Light and Building show in Frankfurt. Could the latest technical advances and changes to the cost of panel manufacture finally allow the predicated breakthrough into the market?
Light and Building 2016 was host to four OLED Technology manufacturers, all demonstrating the capabilities of their products to an impressed audience.
