Circularly polarised organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs)

Reference number 6191

Sectors: Technology equipment

Industries: Electronic Equipment & Parts

A simple, low-cost and scalable technology to fabricate solution-processed circularly polarised organic light-emitting diodes.

Problem addressed

Current contrast-enhancing filters block 50% of conventional OLED display light, halving their energy efficiency. Our circularly polarised OLED emission addresses this limitation, increasing display lifetime (including blue pixels) and battery lifetime by over 50%. Imperial College’s technology offers real gains in performance and can be easily slotted into existing solution-processed fabrication lines without the need for any significant investment.

Technology overview

Standard OLEDs contain a light-emitting polymer, and we simply mixed this with a small amount of a molecule known as a helicene. This blend was then used to fabricate OLED devices using existing procedures. The helicene organises the polymer into an appropriate conformation, so that it can directly emit circularly polarised light.

Proposed use

Liquid crystal displays (LCDs), 3D displays, optical telecommunications, switchable large area lighting, quantum computers, and other display, lighting and photonic applications require light sources which can generate polarised light, and in particular circularly polarised light. For these applications, a highly planar, thin, light-weight, flexible, light-emitting source is highly required. Our circularly polarised organic light emitting diodes/transistors (CP-OLEDs/OLETs) remove the need for polarising filters: this means OLEDs can be made more compact, resulting in highly energy-efficient LCD displays with significantly extended battery. This technique could also be used to make low-energy 3D displays.

Benefits

  • Increased display lifetime
    (including blue pixels) by over 50%
  • Minimum thickness (50-500nm) and smooth incorporation into CP-OLEDs/OLETs
  • The colour of the light emitted is tuneable, making it adaptable to a wide range of applications
  • Low-cost, simple, and scalable method

Intellectual property information

Patent : US9902903B2EP2877552B1

Contact

Edmond Yau

Industry Partnerships and Commercialisation Executive – Faculty of Natural Sciences

Edmond joined Imperial in February 2022 as an Industry Partnerships and Commercialisation Executive. He primarily takes care of IP and licensing cases from the Faculty of Natural Sciences. Prior to joining Imperial, Edmond worked in Royal College of Art as Intellectual Property Manager who assists with queries regarding intellectual property especially patents and copyrights. Edmond has rich experience in transferring technology from tertiary institution to private sector before he moved to the UK. Edmond worked in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Chinese University of Hong Kong for more than a decade handling around several hundreds of inventions and thousands of patent applications/patents from Faculties of Engineering, Science and Medicine. He was also responsible for advising on IP strategy, patent prosecution, and the resolution of IP ownership. In addition to this, Edmond was in charge of the invention disclosure process, patent prosecution as well as licensing negotiations. He handled various types of agreements, including confidentiality, licensing, joint-ownership and royalty sharing agreements. Edmond is a patent agent by training (qualified in the People Republic of China in 2016), with his first degree in Chemical Engineering and a Master degree in Laws specialised in IP Laws from the […]

Contact Edmond

[email protected]

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