A collaborative research project between Covion Organic Semiconductors and Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) has made a significant breakthrough with the development of a new generation of light emitting polymers (LEPs) for OLED display applications. These new materials offer highly saturated colours, for example CIE colour co-ordinate y < 0.2 in blue at lifetimes exceeding 10,000 hrs.

The joint team is based at Covion’s major facility in Frankfurt and at CDT’s Cambridge research centre in the UK. Impressive improvements in key performance areas have been achieved since the project began in early 2002, building on Covion and CDT collaboration since the mid ‘90s.

CDT Project Leader Dr Paul Wallace comments: "We are seeing increasing rates of progress on the lifetime of these new materials, and achievement of key blue material means that we now have a full set of RGB colours ready for early applications."

"Progress by the Covion/CDT team with these new materials is one of an important series of OLED technology streams our companies are taking forward", said Covion’s Head of Research & Development Dr Heinrich Becker, "and we expect to see further significant progress later this year".

"We look forward to enquiries from co-operation partners to assess samples of these new materials", added Dr Aurelie Falcou, Joint Project Leader at Covion.

The recent developments will further accelerate the adoption of PLED technology, which is already being used in full commercial applications - such as in the new ‘Magic Mirror’ Philips 639 cellphone.

About CDT
Cambridge Display Technology is a global leader in the research, development and commercialisation of light emitting polymers (PLEDs) which are targeted for use in a wide range of electronic display products used for information management, communications and entertainment. Features include reduced power consumption, size, thickness and weight, very wide viewing angle, superior video imaging performance and the potential for use on flexible display substrates. Current CDT licensees are actively developing their manufacturing strategies.

Founded in 1992, the company is headquartered in Cambridge, UK.

About Covion
Covion is a leader in the design, development, manufacturing and marketing of light emitting organics for the OLED industry. It is the only company offering a complete service range for all main OLED technologies, including fluorescents and phosphorescents, conjugated polymers and hybrids.

Covion has materials R&D and related projects in development for well over 20 leading international consumer electronics OEMs. Based in Frankfurt, Covion has an office in Japan and technical agency representation in South Korea and Taiwan. Covion is part of the electronic materials business portfolio of the Avecia group.

For more information about Covion click here

For more information about Avecia click here