Researchers from the Fraunhofer IAP insitute, together with MBraun, developed a new production facility that can be used to print OLED panels and OPV cells. They say that the new system can be used to produce large sample panels. The Fraunhofer showed the "bus stop of the future" that includes both large OPVs and OLED displays:

The Fraunhofer released very little technical details. I think this process actually produces very large OLED (or OPV) pixels , so you can think of these as OLED lighting panels and not really displays. The researchers said that the system includes a robot that controls different printers - and this all is like a "huge" ink-jet printer.

OLED Encapsulation is a very hot topic, especially for flexible OLEDs. Samsung and LG are already producing flexible OLEDs, but the search for better encapsulation technologies is still on. ALD, or Atomic Layer Deposition is one candidate for future deposition of OLED encapsulation. ALD is based on Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) that uses two vapors (gaseous) precursors which react on the substrate which creates a solid thin film. ALD works in relatively low temperatures which means it is suitable for all substrates including plastics.

One of the leaders in ALD is Finland's Beneq. Beneq developed an inorganic barrier film called nClear which is deposited using ALD. Beneq says that nClear provides "world class" barrier performance and can be deposited at temperatures well below 100 degrees Celsius. Beneq offers the TFS-600 (Gen-2.5, 500x400 mm) which is used for industrial-scale OLED encapsulation. Beneq's director of Technical sales, Mikko Soderlund, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had on the company's technology and business. Mikko is leading the application development and commercialization of ALD-based thin-film encapsulation technology for OLEDs. He has a PhD in Photonics from Helsinki University of Technology (2009).

Researchers from the University of Utah, Bonn and Regensburg developed a new wagon-wheel (or rotelle-pasta) shaped OLED molecule that emits non-polarized (random) light.Those oligomers, or wrapped-up polymers may enable OLEDs more efficient than polymer based OLEDs (PLEDs).

The researchers explain that current poylmer OLED molecules (which are shaped like spaghetti pasta, to continue the same metaphore) emit polarized light. Some of that light get trapped inside the OLED device and this makes it less efficient. They say that up to 80% of the generated light may be trapped in the OLED because it is polarized.

Researchers from the University of Utah developed a new polymer light emitting device that can be tuned to emit light of different colors, including white (without the need to mix several emitters). The new material is a polymer molecule doped with platinum. The same material can also be used to develop efficient OPVs or Spintronics-based memory devices.

The device currently being developed at Utah isn't an OLEDs as it only emits light when stimulated by other light (such as a laser) and not when simulated by an electrical current. But the researchers say that a white OLED based on this technology is possible and predict that it will be developed within two years. The current device isn't actually white, it emits colored color (more on this below) and they say it will take about one year till they manage to develop a white Pt-1 device.

The EU-funded ManuCloud (distributed Cloud product specification and supply chain manufacturing execution infrastructure) project was successfully completed, and the partners (Fraunhofer COMEDD, Heliatek, Tridonic Dresden and others) presented a demonstrator of a "facade module" which includes OLED lighting and OPV panels. The ManuCloud project envisions a cloud-like architecture concept, providing users with the ability to utilize the manufacturing capabilities of configurable, virtualized production networks.

The objective of the ManuCloud project was the development of a service-oriented IT environment as basis for the next level of manufacturing networks by enabling production-related inter-enterprise integration down to shop floor level. The EU considers the transition from mass production to personalized, customer-oriented and eco-efficient manufacturing to be a promising approach that may improve and secure the competitiveness of the European manufacturing industries.

Rolic and Roth & Rau agreed to jointly develop system solutions for the organic electronics and display market. The partnership will bring together Rolic’s competences in materials and device fabrication and Roth & Rau’s expertise in integrated process equipment.

In the first stage of this agreement, the two companies will offer barrier and encapsulation technologies. for flexible OLEDs, OPVs and other flexible organic electronics. Roth & Roe's R&D facility is close by to Rolic's newly established OLED-focused technical center in Eindhoven and they both hope that this will enable to quickly bring their joint solutions to the market.

Researchers from the University of Tokyo developed a highly-flexible OLED lighting device that can work even after being completely bent and crumpled. They hope that this device can be used for medical and healthcare sensors.

The flexible panel uses a metal electrode (LiF/Al), a transparent PEDOT:PSS transparent electrode and a polymer substrate. The minimum bending radius is 10 micrometer and the brightness of the panel is 100 cd/m².

The UK's Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) posted some updates on their OLED program. They have recently produced defect free OLED lighting samples. They managed to produce panels that has large (over 250 cm²) emissive areas (they are producing these panels on 8" substrates and so could exceed 160x160 mm panels).

The CPI developed two kinds of panels - the first uses small molecule materials and the second uses full solution-processable PLED materials. They have also produced samples that use a hybrid structure with a PEDOT layer (deposited using a slot die process) with an evaporative emissive layer (that has better efficiency and performance compared to the PLEDs). The 154x154 mm example shown above is the hybrid structure.

Beneq announced that together with Fraunhofer's COMEDD, they have developed a new R&D thin film ALD encapsulation system for 200×200 mm OLED and OPV substrates. This system is now available - and in a few months they will deliver the first one to COMEDD.

The new encapsulation system is based on a cross-flow reactor, which has been optimized for the shortest possible cycle time, even at low processing temperatures, such as under 100 Celsius. This allows for rapid OLED prototyping and enables process scale-up for large areas and high throughput. Beneq's new system can be used as a stand-alone system, and it can also be integrated with an MBraun glove box.

Fluxim released version 3.3 of their SETFOS simulation software, used to study OLED and OPVs. Version 3.3 includes the following improvements over the previous version (released in March 2011):

• multi-threading support for speed improvement on multicore PCs
• a completely re-designed graphical user interface (GUI)
• a solver for electrical impedance spectroscopy simulations
• an algorithm for scalar light scattering