Research and development in the area of OLED’s has been fast and furious
in the past few years. Numerous universities and corporations have leaped on
this exciting green innovation. OLEDs are organic light-emitting diodes,
organic because it relies on carbon-based polymers and molecules rather than
inorganic semiconductors such as silicon (like the standard LED.
Even the U.S. Department of Energy has jumped into the fray, which reports
approximately 22 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States goes
toward lighting. It’s a $58-billion-a-year bill and growing. Through its
solid-state lighting research program, the energy department hopes to develop
commercially acceptable lights that will need 50 percent less electricity
by 2025.
Recently South Dakota State University research scientists have produced cheap
and efficient OLEDs (and organic photovoltaics), which are made up of thin
films of semiconducting organic compounds that can absorb photons of solar
energy. Typically an organic polymer, or a long, flexible chain of carbon-based
material, is used as a substrate on which semiconducting materials are applied
as a solution using a technique similar to inkjet printing. OLEDs would offer
more variety in lighting design, since they would take the form of flexible
sheets.
This new technology will make it easy to insert lights into walls or ceilings.
But instead of light bulbs, the lighting of the future may look more like a
poster or an entire wall. Printing OLEDs onto flexible substrates opens the
door to new applications such as roll-up displays and displays embedded in
fabrics or clothing.
White OLEDs emit white light that is brighter, more uniform and more energy
efficient than that emitted by fluorescent lights. White OLEDs also have the
true-color qualities of incandescent lighting. Because OLEDs can be made in
large sheets, they can replace fluorescent lights that are currently used in
homes and buildings.
OLEDs, because they are organic, will degrade over time, but their lifetime
already exceeds those of incandescent light bulbs, and OLEDs are being
researched worldwide as a source of general illumination.
White OLEDs should reduce energy consumption and lower the amount of by-product
heat, further reducing energy and environmental burdens. White OLEDs are also
environmentally benign, especially compared to mercury-containing fluorescent
lights and newer compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). Combining these important
green features with a very thin, lightweight, durable and flexible form, white
OLEDs offer significant new lighting design opportunities.
If half of all lighting is made up of OLEDs and LEDs by 2025 it will cut
worldwide power use by 120 gigawatts. That would save $100 billion a year and
reduce the carbon dioxide emitted by electrical plants by 350 megatons a year.
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