Feb 19 2009
Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ:PANL), an innovator behind today's and tomorrow's displays and lighting through its UniversalPHOLED™ phosphorescent OLED technology, today announced that the company was honored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for its research advances in white OLED lighting performance. With the support of the DOE, Universal Display has been working on developing highly-efficient white OLEDs for use in myriad lighting applications. Universal Display was recognized during ‘Transformations in Lighting', the DOE's annual Solid-State Lighting Workshop, held February 3-5 in San Francisco, CA.
Dr. James Brodrick, DOE Lighting Program Manager, recognized Universal Display's achievement in setting efficiency records for white OLED lighting. Dr. Michael Hack of Universal Display also spoke about recent advances and Universal Display's development of white OLED lighting in a presentation titled "Pushing the Envelope for White OLED Efficiencies." In particular, Dr. Hack highlighted Universal Display's 2008 demonstration of a white OLED light source with record luminous efficiency of 102 lumens per Watt (lm/W), a significant leap forward in OLED efficiency. That milestone placed OLED development well on the way to achieving the DOE's target of a 150 lm/W OLED lighting device by 2015.
"The DOE's support of our ongoing research has been very important in helping us to drive advances in white OLED lighting performance. We are appreciative of the DOE's support and proud of the hard work and ingenuity demonstrated by our team," said Steven V. Abramson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Display. "Through this work, we continue to leverage the energy-efficiency of our UniversalPHOLED™ phosphorescent OLED technology to demonstrate white OLED performance with the potential for commercial OLED lighting products in the foreseeable future."
"The U.S. Department of Energy is pleased to recognize Universal Display for their breakthrough achievements in 2008," noted James Brodrick, Lighting Program Manager, U.S. Department of Energy. "The Department will continue to work with Universal Display and other lighting research partners who believe that solid-state lighting solutions using organic light emitting diodes have the potential to play a key role in providing cost-effective, energy-saving alternatives for general lighting applications."
The DOE has made a long-term commitment to advance the development and market the introduction of energy-efficient white lighting sources for general illumination. According to industry estimates, electric bills for lighting alone are over $200 billion per year on a worldwide basis. It has been estimated that by 2016, white OLEDs could generate well over $20 billion in worldwide savings of electricity costs and could save over nine million metric tons of carbon emissions from the U.S. alone.
Today, Universal Display's proprietary PHOLED technology and materials are in commercial use for the production of low power consumption OLED displays for a variety of portable electronics applications. In these products, and emerging OLED applications such as televisions, PHOLEDs provide excellent performance characteristics that translate into energy savings, environmental benefits and cost effectiveness. Similar benefits can be derived from the use of OLEDs for lighting.