An initiative to develop low-cost OLED lighting in the UK has secured government funding and will officially start in early November.
Thin organic prototypes, design, research, applications with end-user recognition (TOPDRAWER), will attempt to prove it is possible to make a polymer light-emitting diode (PLED) luminaire.
Thorn Lighting is leading the project, which is exploiting earlier R&D into PLED lighting within The Organic Polymeric Light Emitting Semiconductor Surfaces (TOPLESS) project. Thorn Lighting, a Zumtobel business, along with Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Durham University, partnered on the project that ended a few months ago.
Consortium
The partners will reconvene in a few months' time to work on the two-and-a-half-year TOPDRAWER project. Several new participants make up the consortium. They are Tridonic, which makes drivers for luminaires and is also a Zumtobel subsidiary; glass maker Pilkington, to provide the substrates; and Conductive Inkjet Technology (CIT), which has done some work on printing wires and conductive patterns on substrates.
The consortium will develop and demonstrate a printed manufacturing process that will be integrated into attractive designs that have been created through consultation with potential end-users.
The manufacturing process will then be proved and tested within the Printable Electronics Technology Centre (PETEC), the UK's national design, development and prototyping facility based at Sedgefield, County Durham. Equipment for the process, comprising a large-area coating line, will be acquired and installed by PETEC in the coming months
The UK government-backed Technology Strategy Board has awarded the project funding from an £8.4 million (€10.1 million) pot that has been ring-fenced to support R&D in plastic electronics, related technologies and their commercial application.
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Technology Strategy Board
Website for the UK government agency
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Cambridge Display Technology (CDT)
CDT is providing the core PLED IP for the TOPLESS project and is a partner along with Durham University and Thorn Lighting
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Thorn Lighting
The Zumtobel subsidiary is working with CDT and Durham University to develop PLED lighting
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UK-funded project produces ITO-free OLED lighting demonstrator
UK companies Cambridge Display Technology and Conductive Inkjet Technology have produced a polymer OLED lighting device that does not use a conductive indium tin oxide (ITO) layer
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The Future of OLEDs for Lighting and Displays
Latest OLED market report for displays and lighting markets published by Pira
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