Osram say they can now simultaneously improve two crucial OLED characteristics – lifetime and efficiency. Usually, higher efficiency means shorter life, and vice versa.
By March 2009, Osram expect OLED development to be so far advanced that a flat OLED module comprising several tiles will be able to deliver 500 lumens from less than 10 watts of power.
Osram’s results were achieved as part of the “500 lm Multi-OLED Module” project under the OPAL research consortium. This project focuses on the optimisation of the layer system comprising small molecules, in which the layers are produced by means of vacuum evaporation. In addition to Osram, this project involves Siemens, the universities in Darmstadt, Braunschweig and Augsburg and the IPMS Dresden.
The OPAL (Organic Phosphoresce Diodes for Applications on the Lighting Market) project was launched by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) to strengthen OLED development in Germany