European Project Concludes with Breakthroughs in OLED Materials

A three-year European project to develop solution-processable materials for OLEDs has concluded, bringing significant advancements in efficiency and stability.

The NEMO (NEw Materials for OLEDs from solutions) project was a consortium of 11 companies led by Merck, with funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The project explored various OLED materials and capabilities, including soluble light-emitting materials, charge transport materials, and new adhesives.

Merck developed new phosphorescent materials for red, green, and blue applications, increasing the lifetime of green triplet emitter materials from 10,000 hours to over 200,000 hours. The efficiency of these materials was also improved from 30 cd/A to over 70 cd/A at a brightness of 1000cd/m2.

Other project participants achieved notable results, including Humboldt University's development of electron transport materials and Fraunhofer Institute's polymer-based phosphorescent systems. Heraeus Precious Metals developed new intermediate layers that improve charge carrier injection and lifetime.