UK university spin-out to work with global firms in OLED industry

21 Dec 2009

A spin-out from the University of Hull believes its OLED technology is unique enough to attract interest from major consumer electronics firms and display suppliers.

The company, PolarOLED, was established in November 2009 to commercialise the technology developed by founder Steve Kelly, professor of organic and materials chemistry at the University of Hull.

Says Kelly: 'We demonstrated proof of some of the principles, but we're behind the development curve in terms of generating data to demonstrate this technology is commercially competitive.'

The spin-out is now working to establish the specifications that can sell this technology to OLED manufacturers and suppliers for end-use technologies, such as mobile phones.

Kelly explains: 'The investment to scale up the production of these is so large that it's not realistic to think we could raise it - what we're really looking for is a technology partnership.

'We've had interest from Europe and also from Asia. We've been in contact with major chemical companies with experience in semiconductors and display device manufacturers.'

Advantages
While details of the material and production processes remain confidential, Kelly is confident that PolarOLED's offering holds advantages over current technologies.

He remarks: 'We hope to compete on cost, for instance with small molecule producers, because these aren't compatible with mass production.

'We can also compete with polymer devices because our OLEDs can be patterned with photolithography.'

The company also hopes that the ability to use technology already applied to LCD production will encourage fast adoption.

Kelly adds: 'These OLEDs have the advantages of low-cost, large-area manufacturing as they can spin-coat onto substrates and do photolithography, as is already used for LCDs.'

While the promise of cheap OLEDs, made using a process that retains clarity, has generated interest already, PolarOLED must not work on tests at the University of Hull to confirm that its devices can compete on lifetime and efficiency levels with the polymer technologies of CDT or the phosphorus devices of Universal Display Corporation.

As well as collaborating on scale-up efforts in the future, early enquiries could lead to technology development in collaboration in the near-term too, Kelly suggests.

He concludes: 'We've had quite considerable interest from people wanting to evaluate our materials. Our company launch has stimulated interest from potential partners for co-development.'