The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is to co-fund a Euro 32 million research project into organic light-emitting diodes that will bring together eleven of the country’s leading industrial and academic researchers in the field.
The project, “New materials for OLEDs from solutions” (NEMO), led by Merck, aims to develop soluble materials for use in large-area organic light-emitting diode (OLED) components for devices such as televisions, electronic traffic signs and lighting systems.
OLEDs have tremendous potential as a cost- and energy-efficient lighting technology, says Udo Heider, head of the OLED unit at Merck. “We want to provide industry with customised OLED materials, thus enabling cost-effective manufacturing processes from the liquid phase.”
The NEMO project, being funded until the end of July 2012, involves four industrial companies and seven academic partners.
By using ultra-thin luminescent layers, the OLED technology will makes it possible to produce large homogeneous lighting surfaces with a total thickness of just a few millimetres. Merck says these new materials should significantly improve scalability and coating efficiency.
NEMO project will focus on soluble phosphorescent materials for red, green and blue applications. In order to develop marketable solutions quickly, different injection, transport, electrode and adhesive materials, will be researched, evaluated and tested in parallel.