Daily production OLED lighting panel production 1 million

Konica Minolta (Konica Minolta) development of OLED lighting with innovative features. That is a lot more than other lighting devices, including LED lighting: OLED lighting panel (white) only 0.35mm thick, thin as paper. Made up of very thin organic matter, the thickness of each layer is only a few hundred nm, less than 1/1000 of the hair.

Konica Minolta's OLED lighting panels using resin substrate, so the thickness of the original glass substrate products only about 1/5. Also very light weight, the panel weighs only a piece of 150mm * 60MM about 5G. Due to the use of a flexible resin substrate, can also bend.

The utility model can exploit the new uses of traditional lighting, such as the vehicle can be attached to the roof part of the automobile, etc..

But the Konica Minolta production of the road is not smooth sailing of the resin substrate of OLED lighting.

Konica Minolta's OLED development began in the mid 1990s. Originally aimed at the display and lighting two purposes. But in the display, in addition to Japanese companies, Samsung Electronics and other Korean companies are also accelerating the development of. As a result, Konica Minolta Research Institute in early 2000s developed a focus on the development of OLED lighting policy.

Technical experience in film

Because of the use of light OLED light, thin, coupled with the different characteristics of the entire LED light-emitting, is expected to achieve high growth. In addition, we can make full use of Konica Minolta's experience in film production.

That is the "volume to roll" technology: in a film like food preservation roll rolled into thin resin substrate, coated with thin materials, such as the formation of organic light-emitting layer, protective film and circuit, etc.. Because the manufacturing process can be simplified, the OLED lighting panel can be manufactured at a low cost.

Therefore, the use of Konica Minolta film on the accumulation of photographic materials and other technologies to accelerate the development of blue phosphorescent material. 2006, to achieve the highest luminous efficiency of the time - 64lm/W. This has aroused the concern of the United States general electric. In 2007, the two companies decided to work together to develop OLED lighting panels.

However, various problems continue to emerge, the yield of the production process can not be improved. It also takes time to improve the luminous efficiency and extend the life of the panel. In this case, Konica Minolta in 2010 decided to cancel cooperation with GE.

There are 3 obstacles to the production technology of OLED lighting panel using resin substrate.

The first is to improve the luminous efficiency. OLED light-emitting principle is very simple. That is, the voltage is loaded into the organic matter, and the positively charged hole and negatively charged electrons are injected from the two electrodes". When both of them are in the light emitting layer, the organic matter of the luminescent layer reaches a high energy state. When this state is restored to its original low energy state (the ground state), the organic layer (the emitting layer) releases the energy as light.

Luminous principle of OLED lighting

In order to improve the luminous efficiency, it is necessary to improve the efficiency of the light emitting from the organic layer, and only about 20% of the light can be exported in 2010. To solve this problem, Konica Minolta developed a "internal light emitting layer" which can make light scattering and easy to export". After adding the light guide layer, 40% light can be exported. So as to achieve the highest efficiency of 139lm/W OLED lighting. Allegedly, this is higher than the average level of luminous efficiency of LED lighting appliances.

The other is to extend life. In order to make OLED lighting, in addition to light-emitting materials (guest materials), but also the need to transfer electrons and holes to the main material on the luminescent material. The main material contains a small amount of luminescent materials, which interact with the guest materials.

Konica Minolta through continuous simulation to improve the design of the main material, the blue light-emitting material to extend the life of the original 5 times. The life span of the OLED lighting panel has been extended from 20 thousand hours in 2010 to a mere 100 thousand hours in 2012.

1 million tablets per month

The final hurdle is the development of diaphragm. OLED light-emitting layer does not water and oxygen, so the need for high-performance barrier film. Moreover, in order to make light through, but also requires transparency, technology development is difficult, the performance of food packaging to achieve 100 thousand times the diaphragm.

Konica Minolta's development team gives the answer is that without a single layer of inorganic membranes and inorganic layer with polymer barrier film. If only a single layer of inorganic layer is thick, when there is a defect, there will be easy to penetrate through the water vapor. The inorganic and organic layers, such as sandwiches, overlap multiple layers, even if a part of the defect, the other layer can still be blocked.

Konica Minolta, said, "through the use of laminated structure, the performance of the diaphragm to improve the leap".

After crossing the three obstacles, mass production has finally opened up the road. Konica Minolta plant in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan has started from the autumn of 2014 for the production of customer base resin substrate using OLED lighting panel.

The plant invested 10 billion yen, the monthly production capacity of 1 million. Although the future can open up a new market is still unknown, but the company is ready to office, automotive and aircraft lighting appliance sales panel.

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