OLED expert to present new thermal management research

Dan Rogers - 01 Sep 2011

Steve Forrest, vice president of research in the department for materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan, will present new research on thermal management in OLED devices at the upcoming Society for Information Display's UK Organic Electronics chapter meeting.

The event takes place at Imperial College London, UK, on 5-6 September.

Forrest's research looks at managing the temperature of OLED lighting devices, in order to protect the longevity of the luminaires.

He comments: 'One of the things we've been looking at recently is thermal management. People have started to realise that LED bulbs can have a thermal management problem.

'With OLEDs this issue is reduced because, as a distributed light source, the highest temperature point on a device will probably be only 30ºC or so. However, as the OLED's temperature rises, it can have an impact on the device's lifetime.

'We're looking at ensuring OLEDs are a truly cool light source - making a really small improvement in getting heat out to get very high intensity.'

Cost

Alongside thermal management, Forrest sees cost as one of the biggest barriers to OLED lighting's success. While he has seen considerable improvements in the performance of OLED devices since beginning work on the technology in 1994, this commercial factor is proving more of a challenge.

He adds: 'The price points are pretty challenging, though efficiency is high and colour quality is good.

'Nobody has good cost data, and there are manufacturing challenges in making the technology cheap. These devices will initially have much higher costs though: and the substrate cost and processing can be lowered, but then you have yield issues.'

Nevertheless Forrest expects the OLED lighting industry to make commercial progress in the coming years, much as OLED displays have recently.

He comments: 'OLED lighting will follow the same trajectory as displays - they will start with some boutique applications, gain experience and then move towards commoditised lighting.'

Forrest will discuss the progress of OLED lighting at the SID conference, alongside talks from presenters such as Merck, BASF and Imec.

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