Project description
Bringing blue to OLED displays
Blue light has long been the weak link in OLED technology. Current blue emitters are inefficient, draining batteries, increasing energy use and causing screen ‘burn-in’ that shortens device lifespan. These drawbacks have kept OLED TV adoption low. Despite years of research, a stable and efficient blue emitter for large-scale production remains out of reach. The EIC-funded beeUP project is helping beeOLED bring this breakthrough to market. Specifically, beeOLED’s deep-blue emitter, based on divalent europium (Eu2+) and trivalent Cerium(Ce3+), delivers brighter, longer-lasting and more energy-efficient OLED displays. By stabilising Eu2+ and Ce3+ for the first time, the team has created patented technology ready for industrial scaling, marking a major step towards more sustainable, high-performance screens.
Objective
In OLED, blue has been the critical weak point ever since the commercialization of OLED displays. Because of the inefficient blue emitters still used today, OLED TVs receive poor energy star ratings and smartphones run out of battery quickly. Additionally, their poor stability results in “burn in”, which, for example, requires smart watches to be dimmed down most of the time. Market penetration of OLED in TV is therefore stuck at 3-5%. Given the importance of blue emitters for the OLED market (and the resulting commercial attractiveness), numerous attempts have been made in the last 20 years to solve this problem. However, neither startups nor large corporates have been able to present a solution viable for high-volume manufacturing. Especially scaling up a promising material from laboratory scale to mass production is still a major hurdle for most solutions.
beeOLED is solving the last big problem of the OLED industry - a highly efficient, long lasting, deep-blue emitter. Building on 20 years of OLED industry experience, the founding team of beeOLED has rediscovered an almost forgotten star amongst the display materials: divalent Europium (Eu2+). Leveraging the latest advances in Europium chemistry, beeOLED managed, for the first time ever, to stabilize Eu2+ such that it becomes usable in OLEDs. The fundamental concept is protected by several base patents, solely owned by beeOLED. beeOLED’s technology enables OLED displays with significantly improved efficiency, brightness and chemical stability at lower overall costs due to a less complex device structure.
The overall OLED materials market is valued today at US$1.7bn/y with a CAGR of 15%. Initially, beeOLED will focus on the OLED emitter dopant materials, which is a highly promising market with strong profit margins. After successfully scaling up the production, the goal of beeOLED is to achieve a dominant position in this market with the vision to become the No .1 OLED emitter material provider in 2030.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering information engineering telecommunications mobile phones
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-EIC-ACC - HORIZON EIC Accelerator
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIC-2025-ACCELERATOR-02
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
01217 DRESDEN
Germany
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.