Organic Thin Film Devices for Displays and Lighting

Abstract

Organic materials can be used for fabrication of, e.g., electronic circuits, solar cells, light sensors, memory cells and light emitting diodes. Especially organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) are increasingly attractive because of their huge market potential. The feasibility of efficient OLEDs was first shown in 1987 [3]. Only about ten years later the first product, a display for car radios, entered the market. Today monochrome and full colour OLED-displays can be found in many applications replacing established flat panel display technologies like TFT-LCDs. This substitution is a consequence of the outstanding attributes of OLED technology: Organic light emitting displays are self-emissive, thin, video capable and in addition they show a wide temperature operation range and allow a viewing angle of nearly 180 degree in conjunction with a low power consumption. As performance has steadily increased over the last years, today OLEDs are also under investigation as next generation light source. In contrast to inorganic LEDs, they can be built as flat 2-dimensional light sources that are lightweight, colour tunable, and potentially cheap. This will open up new degrees of freedom in design leading also to completely new applications. In this contribution we will have a brief view on the history of organic electroluminescent materials before we introduce the basic principles of OLEDs with a focus on the physical processes leading to light generation in thin organic films. Along with an overview of different concepts and technologies used to build OLEDs, the current status of OLED development will be illustrated. The last part focuses on the challenges that have to be overcome to enable a sustainable success in the display and lighting markets.