GE researchers create printable, flexible OLEDs

Researchers at GE have created the world's first roll-to-roll manufactured OLEDs -- a newspaper printing-like process that is the first step to plentiful, cheaply produced, flexible lighting. Production of the thin, organic materials in this manner could lead to a wide array of innovations in the use of lights, sensors, and displays, and could make a noticeable impact on the efficiency and environmental performance of lighting and electronics. The company envisions a new playing-field for businesses, architects, and lighting designers who need access to cheap, energy-conscious materials, and see this research as a first step to an emerging field of commercialized OLED lighting.

Since the early days of OLED research, people have said that OLEDs could potentially be made at very low cost because they don’t require expensive semiconductor manufacturing techniques. The ultimate low cost fabrication method would be a continuous "roll-to-roll" process like what is done in newspaper printing. However, so far, no one has demonstrated that OLEDs can be made this way. So about 4 years ago, GE set out to find out whether it could be done.

Here is the message found in GE blog.

Our proposal was to build a research roll-to-roll line for making OLEDs and our deliverable was to show that OLEDs could be made on it. We’ve been working to make this happen for the past 4 years. This means that we’ve been working to develop OLED device designs and fabrication processes that are compatible with roll-to-roll processing and to design and build individual equipment modules and then integrate them into a working line. Because this had never been done before, we faced some real technical challenges - especially given our program time constraints that often meant we had to start designing machine modules before we had the device fabrication process completely figured out! Anyway, in the end it all came together and we were successful in making our deliverable. Here’s picture proof that we were able to make OLEDs using our roll-to-roll machine.