Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/31/oled_technique/
Japanese boffin boasts electrospray OLEDs
As cheap/expensive as newspapers
Posted in Media, 31st August 2009 22:18 GMT
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Displays created using self-illuminating organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology "could be manufactured as inexpensively as printing newspapers," according to one of the researchers involved in developing the new manufacturing process.
As reported [1] in Nanowerk, one Yutaka Yamagata of the Japanese research center, RIKEN [2], also claims that the new method will also result in displays with better performance than current OLED-based displays.
The new method uses an electrospray-deposited polymer films rather than the spin-coated films used in today's OLEDs, which allows the resulting display to be smoother, and each pixel on it to have a higher intensity, even at lower voltages.
An abstract of the paper, "Thin-Film Fabrication Method for Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Using Electrospray Deposition," can be found here [3], along with a link to purchase the full paper for $49.95.
Although "as inexpensively as printing newspapers" may sound wonderfully cheap, the infrastructure required for printing the daily news is pricey indeed.
That said, this development - if it pans out, and if mass-manufacturing techniques could be developed cost-effectively - could be another step toward the all-OLED future that has been "just around the corner" for a disappointingly long time. ®