Wednesday, April 17, 2013

No. 705: Bendable organic EL lighting as thin as a sheet of paper (April 17, 2013)

Technology:
Konica Minolta developed organic electroluminescence (EL) lighting as thin as a sheet of paper. Because it is soft and bendable, it can be pasted on various places. The company wishes to put it into practical use by increasing its brightness to the level comparable with light-emitting diode (LED) and stick on the ceiling of trains and vehicles in several years. It also plans to propose new applications such as shining columns and windows.

The newly-developed organic EL is made of three layers of organic materials that shine blue, red, and green respectively when voltage is applied, and the tricolor lights mix and irradiate incandescent light. The initial product is 6 cm wide and 15 cm long, and it is bright enough to tell that it is shinning in a bright room. The company built an organic EL thin film and an electrode on a soft plastic substrate by two production methods of the evaporation method and application method. At the present stage, it is darker than LED lighting that is currently growing popular rapidly, but the company is sure to make it brighter by improving the materials and manufacturing process. Organic EL lighting is expected to spread substantially in 2015.

Bendable organic EL       
  

No comments:

Post a Comment