Thorn is leading a project to develop organic light-emitting diode (OLED) materials and efficient device structures for large area lighting applications.
Dr. Geoff Williams, OLED Group Leader of Thorn Lighting in Spennymoor, County Durham said: “The materials we are hoping to develop will give high brightness, high efficiency white light, which could replace general-purpose lighting such as fluorescent and incandescent lamps.”
Large, wafer thin, OLED lighting panels are one of the key technologies touted to displace conventional light sources. The materials can be printed onto either solid or flexible glass or plastic substrates with long life (20,000 hours), reduced energy consumption and less waste (1kg of material will coat 10,000,000m² of lighting area).
Partners in the project are the University of Durham and Cambridge Display Technology (CDT), with the DIUS providing a maximum funding of £1.6m over three years. Total initial funding amounts to £3.3m.
Under the terms of the grant, CDT through its Sumation joint venture will provide significant knowledge and experience in the field of light emitting conjugated polymers as well as delivering polymer-based OLED materials, device architectures and testing.
Durham University has developed one of the most important academic alliances between physicists and chemists in Europe, having unique facilities for studying energy transfer mechanisms in both polymer materials and device structures. The Thorn team will strive to design new Sigma 6 manufacturing and quality control processes capable for this emerging technology.
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