In 2001, lighting was estimated to consume 8.2 quads (approximately 762 TWh), or about 22% of the total electricity generated in the U.S. New high-efficiency solid-state light sources, such as light emitting diodes (LEDS) and organic LEDs (OLEDs), are needed to help reduce the ever increasing demand for energy. An OLED is potentially an inexpensive diffuse source that may compete most directly with and offer a `green' alternative to conventional incandescent light sources. However, improvements in the overall efficiency of these devices are still needed before they can become commercially viable products and attain expected goals in terms of cost ($3 per 1000 lumens) and performance (150 lumens per watt). This project will utilize novel outcoupling enhancement features in OLED architectures to enable the production of highly efficient, organic, solid-state, lighting sources. With these enhancements, the very high conversion efficacies should allow OLEDs to replace short lifetime 12 lm/W incandescent sources, and hence reduce overall energy consumption in the U.S.
Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: Today, OLED technology is the leading emerging technology for flat panel displays (FPDs), with recent product introductions in cell phones. Many of the features that are desired for FPDs are also making OLED technology of great interest to the solid-state lighting community. For example, OLEDs are thin-film devices that provide thin form factors, especially when built on flexible substrates. Moreover, OLEDs require less materials, have fewer processing steps, and may be less capital intensive than todays dominant liquid crystal displays.
