February 4, 2005, Aachen, Germany--More than 20 of Europe's leading companies and research establishments in organic electronics and materials as well as lighting applications, have joined together in OLLA--an integrated R&D project to advance organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies.
OLLA stands for "High Brightness Organic Light-Emitting Diodes for ICT (Information, Communications and Technology) & Lighting Applications" and has a project goal to demonstrate in 2008 high-brightness white OLED light tiles for use in general lighting, with a long lifetime and high energy efficiency.
OLEDs are an attractive class of solid-state light sources, which are opening up completely new applications in large-area illumination. OLEDs are flat light sources and could be made in the future on flexible substrates. OLEDs could also be used in lighting systems with controllable color, allowing users to customize their light atmosphere at home. Furthermore, as a high efficient light source, the technology has the potential of achieving substantial energy savings.
"In recent years, OLED technology has improved to the point where it is now possible to envision OLEDs as the next solid-state light source. In order to make this happen, significant advances must still be made in device efficiency, lifetime at high brightness, high throughput fabrication processes, and the generation of illumination-quality white light. That's exactly what we will do in OLLA. We will aim for a lifetime of 10,000 hours � which is 10 times longer than a standard incandescent bulb - and an efficiency of 50 lumens per Watt," said Peter Visser of Philips, project manager of OLLA.
The project covers several important fields, including fundamental understanding of the materials and device aspects, electrical and optical properties of OLEDs, manufacturing principles and system integration. Several routes to make white light will be investigated. "A unique chance of the OLLA project is, that small-molecule devices as well as polymer LEDs are investigated side by side. Both approaches will definitely benefit from each other and this will bring OLED lighting forward to its realization," said Karsten Heuser of Siemens CT, responsible for the polymer deposition part within OLLA.
OLLA is one of the world's largest joint research projects on the development of white OLEDs. It is partially funded under the IST (Information Society Technologies) priority of the European Union's 6th Framework Programme.