Upscaling of blue elementary emitter to revolutionize OLED manufacturing

Descrizione del progetto

Il blu nei display OLED

La luce blu è stata a lungo l’anello debole della tecnologia OLED. Gli attuali emettitori blu sono inefficienti, scaricano le batterie, aumentano il consumo energetico e causano il «burn-in» dello schermo, che riduce la durata del dispositivo: questi inconvenienti hanno fatto sì che l’adozione delle TV OLED sia rimasta limitata. Nonostante gli anni di ricerca, un emettitore blu stabile ed efficiente per la produzione su larga scala è tuttora fuori portata. Il progetto beeUP, finanziato dal CEI, sta aiutando beeOLED a immettere questa innovazione sul mercato. In particolare, l’emettitore blu profondo di beeOLED, basato su europio divalente (Eu2+) e cerio trivalente (Ce3+), offre display OLED più luminosi, più duraturi e più efficienti dal punto di vista energetico. Stabilizzando Eu2+ e Ce3+ per la prima volta, il team ha creato una tecnologia brevettata pronta per essere sviluppata a livello industriale, segnando un passo importante in avanti verso la realizzazione di schermi più sostenibili e ad alte prestazioni.

Obiettivo

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.