Universal Display Nabs DoE Grants

Ewing, N.J.-based Universal Display, developer of OLED technologies and materials, has been awarded two new US Department of Energy (DoE) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grants for white phosphorescent OLED lighting programs to demonstrate further advances in white OLED power efficiency and a cost-effective permeation-barrier system. The contracts are valued at $100,000. In the first of the two contracts, Universal Display proposes to demonstrate a very high-efficiency white PHOLED (proprietary phosphorescent OLED) lighting device. Through the use of its UniversalPHOLED technology and materials, enhanced host and transport materials, and high index substrates, Universal Display’s goal is to demonstrate further gains in power efficiency, exceeding its prior research milestone of 102 lm/W. With the second award, the company proposes to demonstrate a white PHOLED using the company’s OLED permeation barrier technology. The company, working with Princeton University, recently demonstrated a material system that forms an ultrahermetic, flexible and transparent environmental barrier for OLEDs. This may provide a cost-effective packaging solution for high-volume, low-cost manufacture of white OLED lighting devices, according to the company. “These two new programs are intended to support continued advances in white OLED performance as well as the drive to lower the OLED cost structure toward the US Department of Energy’s longer-term commercial targets for general lighting,” said Steven V. Abramson, president and CEO of Universal Display.