Inkjet News

Polymertronics is a technology enabler for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs).

They were set up in 2006 to develop technology to produce inkjet-printable, ultra-violet (UV) curable organic light-emitting diode fluids. OLEDs that can be printed on standard UV-inkjet equipment have many advantages.

They are much quicker and cheaper to produce than standard OLEDs, they can be designed and manufactured with very short lead times, they can be printed on to a range of exotic surfaces including flexible ones

What are UV-inkjet OLEDs?
OLEDs were first invented by Eastman Kodak in the early 1980s and development since then has been impressive. OLEDs are used routinely in many display screens, such as those for mobile phones and for low-level lighting of dashboards. Recently, substantial investment has been made in research for developing OLEDs to replace incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs as a primary lighting source.

OLEDs are produced by blending chemicals containing a light-emissive component with a UVcurable polymer. When printed, this mixture is then exposed to a UV light source and cured to a flexible solid within four seconds. The purpose they serve is for bespoke product displays such as 7-segment displays and the like.

The benefits of organic technology are numerous.

For both non-UV curable OLEDs and UV curable OLEDs, there are common benefits:

1. Printing on flexible and rigid media such as plastics, vinyl, glass and metal
2. Immediate product demand – zero lead time
3. Flexible media
4. Fast response to applied voltage for rapid changing graphics
5. Wide viewing angle of OLED devices
6. Very high definition for display

Beyond the common advantages, UV-inkjet OLEDs have further advantages:

1. Simple, fast manufacture
2. Low product waste results in a ‘green’ technology
3. Instant curing following printing
4. Print-on-demand technology
5. Zero product-volume loss during process

Where Can UV-Inkjet OLEDs Be Used?

OLEDs will add new and unparalleled layers of safety to consumer products. For example, it will reassure consumers that products and brands are genuine, that they have not been tampered with, and that they are within their use-by date.

According to the UK’s National Health Service, unclear packaging and labelling contributes to 25% of medication errors. The University of London has studied people reading packaging and found that 25% of fullsighted people have difficulty reading packets and other instructions.

Difficulty with reading information on packaging arises for a number of reasons. The label design or legal requirements may necessitate a smaller font to fit all of the information on the label. Integrating OLEDs into the packaging could highlight the most important details of a drug through an interactive display.

In the interests of sterility, many medical devices are used only once. For this to be viable, such devices must be cheap to produce. Inkjet printing enables a component of a medical device to be manufactured quickly and with significantly less tooling than is presently required. Further, medical devices are often sealed until they are used.
Advertisements can already be backlit, but with printed OLEDs the illumination can be incorporated into the advertisement itself relatively cheaply. There is no tooling required and print designs can be executed quickly. For a fast-paced industry such as advertising, this reduction in lead-time offers a substantial advantage.

Printed OLEDs could be extremely valuable in aiding anti-counterfeiting measures and in tracking goods in transit. Embedded customised data presents fraudsters with a new hurdle. Furthermore, tampering can be quickly and easily detected and data can be changed often to keep ahead of criminals.

What’s Next?
Inkjet testing of the OLED fluid has shown that further refinement of the OLED chemistry is required to enable fluid to be inkjet printed by Epson, or HP printer-heads, for when the formulation is for thin (bright) devices.

Filed under: Blogroll | Tagged: Epson, HP, inkjet.kodak, oled, organic light emitting diodes, Polymertronics, UV |