Santa Clara, CA--At this week's Strategies in Light conference,EV Group (EVG; supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology, solar, and semiconductor markets) and Brisbane Materials Technology (BMT; a coatings and specialty materials company) introduced a new antireflective (AR) coating solution based on BMT's XeroCoat materials that is designed to substantially increase lumen output of light-emitting diode (LED) devices. The jointly developed manufacturing solution, which the companies' say leverages a combination of AR coating processing equipment and tunable, durable, inorganic coating material, enables lumen output increases of up to 8%.
The EVG and BMT AR coating manufacturing solution can be integrated with established production schemes for coating of LED components. The technology enables the creation of a nanoporous silicon dioxide (SiO2) coating from a liquid precursor at room temperature and atmospheric pressure on plastic and glass lenses and luminaires. The SiO2 film, which has undergone rigorous testing (including a 2.5-year accelerated aging test equivalent to more than 20 years of field application), is covalently bonded to the surface for maximum durability and field reliability.
"Improving light efficiency is a constant goal for LED chip and luminaire manufacturers in order to drive down the total cost of LED lighting. However, extracting further improvements in light output from the LED chip design and epitaxial layer growth process has become increasingly difficult and costly. As a result, any incremental improvements in light output that can be gained from other areas with minimal cost or disruption to the LED manufacturing flow can have a significant impact on reducing overall system cost," said Antun Peic, business development manager at EV Group. "Through our partnership with BMT, we've developed a turnkey manufacturing solution that has achieved a significant breakthrough in improving LED light efficiency, which can help accelerate new applications for solid-state lighting such as smart lighting and smart building."
The large-area spray deposition method used for this new process provides maximum processing flexibility as well as scalability. According to Paul Lindner, executive director of technology at EVG, "The large-area spray coating technology used in this process has been in commercial production in the display technology space for well over 10 years. This field-proven equipment solution, combined with BMT's novel material, allows us to quickly and uniformly coat nano-scale films onto a large number of luminaires--a key requirement to meet the challenging volume and cost targets of our LED customers. In addition, spray coating allows for coating over a large range of form factors--for instance, lenses with highly curvilinear features--which is another important requirement for the LED luminaire market."
The companies are located in shared booth #845 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA during the Strategies in Light 2014 Conference and Exhibition on February 25-27. In addition, Peic of EVG will present on the joint-ARC solution on Thursday, February 27 from 11:10 a.m. to noon on the Strategies in Light exhibit floor.
SOURCE: EV Group; http://www.evgroup.com/en/about/news/2014_02_ARCoating/