Phosphorescent

A team of researchers led by Prof. Forrest at the University of Michigan designed a new highly promising blue phosphorescent OLED emitter. The researchers demonstrated a tandem device that is based on these new emitters, that increased the lifetime 250 times compared to a conventional single-stack PHOLED device. This new design provide a real path towards a commercial blue PHOLED device.

To achieve that dramatic increase in lifetime, the researchers applied a polariton-enhanced Purcell (PEP) cathode and anode, to create a so-called PEP-PHOLED device. The blue color coordinate is CIExy = (0.14, 0.12). The researcher say that this double-sided PEP effect can be integrated with other established lifetime-extending technologies. 

Researchers from Tsinghua University have developed a deuterated exciplex-forming host material for deep-blue phosphorescent OLED devices, with improved stability.

The researchers say that this research unveiled an external deuteration effect on OLED dopants, which reduces the shoulder emissions for slightly blue-shifted colors and also accelerates the radiative decay rates. This leads to improved photoluminescence efficiency.

LG Display is demonstrating its latest OLED technologies, displays and prototypes at SID Displayweek 2025. The company is focused, this year, on three technologies: large sized WOLED panels, automotive displays, and next-generation technologies.

In the large-area WOLED zone, LG Display is showing its 4th-Gen WOLED panels, that adopt LG's tandem stack to reach a brightness of up to 4,000 nits. The new OLED panels also boost energy efficiency by approximately 20% compared to the previous generation (based on 65-inch panels), through enhancements in the element structure and power supply system. LG is also showing its latest 27-inch gaming WOLED panels, and its 45-inch 5K2K (5120x2160) monitor panel.

Universal Display announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2025, with revenues of $166 million (up slightly from $165 million last year), and a net income of $64 million, up 13% from the first quarter of 2024 ($57 million). The company ended the quarter with $918 million in cash and equivalents, and the company announced a $100 million share repurchase authorization (in addition to its quarterly dividend).  

While the company is very optimistic about the long-term growth of the OLED market, it acknowledges that it is a time of an increasingly complex global environment. While its business remains largely unaffected by global tariffs and geopolitics, and company is taking a "measured approach in assessing" its future markets. The company projects its revenues in 2025 to be in the range of $640 - $700 million.

LG Display announced that it has successfully verified the commercialization-level performance of blue phosphorescent OLED panels on a mass production line. LG is using a hybrid two-stack Tandem OLED structure, with blue fluorescence in the lower stack and blue phosphorescence in the upper stack. This enabled LG to achieve a power consumption reduction of 15%, while maintaining a similar level of stability to existing OLED panels.

The blue PHOLED emitter was supplied by Universal Display. LG Display says that it has independently filed patents for its hybrid blue phosphorescent OLED technology in both South Korea and the United States.

Universal Display Corporation reported its financial results for Q4 2024, with revenues of $162.3 million (up from $158.3 last year), and net income of $46 million (down from $62 million last year). 

Looking at 2024, UDC reports $647.7 million in revenues, up 12% from 2023 ($576.4 million) while net profit was up 9% ($222 million up from $203 million). The company believes that its 2025 revenues will be in the range of $640 million to $700 million, forecasting growth of up to 8% (and possibly even a 2% decline in revenues). 

DSCC (now part of Counterpoint) says that OLED evaporation material sales will grow 22% in 2024, and will continue to grow at a 6.4% CAGR from 2024 to 2028. Most of the growth will come from IT display panels, for laptops, monitors and tablets.

Interestingly, DSCC estimates that Chinese material developers enjoyed a 58% increase in sales in 2024 to $252 million. The primary reasons for this sharp increase in demand is increased utilization at Chinese AMOLED fabs, increased orders from local companies in China over sourcing these materials from the rest of the world, and new range of materials introduced by materials makers (as Chinese material developers move from intermediates production to emitters and dopants).

Researchers from the the University of Michigan developed a new class of phosphorescence OLED emitters that do not contain heavy metals. The metal was replaced with a new hybrid material. The researchers collaborated with colleagues from Inha University, and Sungkyunkwan University.

In current phosphorescence  OLEDs, the emitters include a heavy metal, in most cases either iridium or platinum. These heavy metals generate a magnetic field that forces the same spin direction excited electron to turn quickly, resulting in faster light emission as it returns to its ground state. The researchers replaced the heavy metal with a 2D layer of molybdenum and sulfur near a similarly thin layer of the organic light emitting material, achieving the same effect by physical proximity without any chemical bonding. 

Researchers from Seoul National University (SNU), in collaboration from colleagues from Samsung's SAIT institute, have identified a critical mechanism behind the performance degradation of OLED devices, the interfacial exciton-polaron quenching mechanism.

The researches have theoretically proposed a mechanism where excitons in the light-emitting layer are quenched by the accumulated charges at the interface. They followed with with experiments that have independently observed this phenomenon, identifying three key factors: interfacial barrier, exciton-polaron distance, and exciton lifetime. 

Researchers from Korea's UNIST institute, together with colleagues from Sungkyunkwan University have developed a new OLED intermediate layer material (with a highly unusual structure, twisted EBMs with anisotropic molecular arrangements) that significantly improves the brightness, efficiency and lifetime of blue phosphorescence OLED devices.

The researcher report that the new materials enable to reduce the operating voltage of the OLED display, thus enhancing the power efficiency by 24% and the operational stability by 21%. The researchers say that this new material can also be used for in-organic LEDs (including microLEDs).