Phosphorescent

Germany-based Credoxys has successfully completed its second funding round, led by deep-tech VC LIFTT and Melchers Group. The company says it will use the funds to commercialize its p-dopant technology in both the Korean and Chinese markets. The company already validated some product candidates with industry partners, and these are ready for customer qualification.

Credoxys is focused on developing novel materials for both the p- and n-sides of OLEDs and organic solar cells (OPVs). The company says its newly developed p-dopants surpass current standards by exhibiting extremely low absorption of visible light and low pixel cross-talk. The materials enable the doping of hole transport materials with deep HOMO levels, making them particularly suitable for phosphorescent blue OLEDs.

Universal Display is progressing with its blue PHOLED material, and earlier this month the company said it is on track to introduce the new material commercially in 2024. During a company seminar, UBI's Daejeong Yoon updated that according to their latest information, Samsung Display has decided to adopt a blue phosphorescence material in the second half of 2025 - a year later than expected.

Samsung is calling the new material stack B1, and it says that the new stack will increase the efficiency of its OLED device by more than 65% (which seems to be rather too much, maybe it means 65% of the power consumption of the current stack). UBI says that the blue OLED still suffers from low lifetime - the lifetime of the blue PHOLED stack is only 55% of the lifetime of its current fluorescence-blue stack, but regardless of that the company will introduce it commercially due to the power consumption efficiency.

Researchers from the University of Manchester, led by Prof. Alexander Romanov, developed a promising new Carbene-Gold-Arylacetylide (CMAc) OLED near UV emitter type. The researchers also detail a strategy to develop longer device lifetimes for such emitters.

The new emitter exhibits an efficiency of 1% EQE, and a lifetime of 20 minutes at a practical brightness of 10 nits (LT50). This is low compared to commercial OLEDs - but it is actually quite outstanding for such an emitter, and the researchers say that this is among the longest lifetimes for a near UV-OLED at a practical brightness ever reported. In addition, organic fluorescent and TADF emitters rarely exceed 1% EQE at practical brightness.

DSCC expects the AMOLED stack material market to grow 4% in 2023, to $1.4 billion, and to reach $2.18 billion in 2027, that's a 12% CAGR from 2023 to 2027. In 2022, the market declined by 10%. The forecast does not include any UDC revenues from blue PHOLED materials, which means that if UDC succeeds in commercializing its blue material, revenues could be higher by hundreds of millions of dollars.

DSCC says that demand for OLED TVs will continue to decline in 2023. In 2022, revenues of OLED TV revenues declined by 17%, and in 2023 revenues will decline 3% further. Growth will resume, though, in 2024, and in 2023-2027 the market will grow at a CAGR of 13%.

A few months ago we reported on research conducted at Germany's Max Planck Institute, led by Prof. Paul W.M. Blom, that looks into single-layer OLED devices. In such devices, a single TADF OLED emitter layer is sandwiched between two electrode - a much simpler design compared to commercial OLED devices that use multilayer stacks, sometimes with 10 or more layers.

The researchers the the MPI say that in fact it is possible to develop highly efficient OLEDs with just the TADF emitter, as there's no fundamental reason or major benefits that arise from multilayer OLEDs. The researchers continue their work, and now they have developed a new single-layer blue OLED in which every injected electron is converted into a photon - or 100% IQE. This is the first time that such a single-layer OLED device was demonstrated (see image above).

Universal Display announced that it will detail advances in its latest PHOLED materials at Display Week 2023. The company's latest red, green, and blue PHOLED materials offer a narrow emission spectrum, which increases the efficiency of OLED devices, in addition to enhancing the color gamut.

UDC also unveil a new OVJP system printed on a 200mm x 500mm Corning Astra Glass substrate. UDC will also showcase the first-ever fully printed seven-layer (HIL/HTL/EBL/EML/HBL/ETL/EIL), 80 PPI, green commercial-level PHOLED device fabricated by its R&D OVJP system that has comparable device performance with vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE). 

In 2000 PPG Industries and Universal Display established a strategic relationship in 2000, and since then PPG has been the exclusive producer of UDC's PHOLED emitter materials. In 2021, the two companies announced that they will establish a new manufacturing site in Shannon, Ireland, for the production of UDC's emitters. Now UDC announced that the new fab is commencing operation.

The new production site will double PPG's production capacity of UDC's PHOLED emitters. This will also increase the company's ability to ensure uninterrupted supply of its crucial materials for the OLED industry. 

Universal Display Corporation announced that it has acquired Merck's Phosphorescent OLED Emitter Intellectual Property (IP) assets. This portfolio includes over 550 issued and pending patents around 172 patent families with an average lifetime of 10 years, and represents over 15 years of R&D. 

The two companies also entered into a multi-year collaboration agreement, in which the two companies will create advanced PHOLED stacks based on UDC's OLED green and yellow emitters and Merck's transport and host materials.

Universal Display reported its financial results for Q1 2023, with revenues of $130 million (down from $150 million last year) and net income of $40 million (down from $50 million in 2022).

UDC says that near-term demand for OLED displays is still soft, but the company remains confident on the long-term growth path for OLED displays. Looking ahead into 2023, the company expects yearly revenues to be in the range of $550 million to $600 million.