Development of flexible organic light-emitting diode on barrier film and roll-to-roll manufacturing

To come out with a successful organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting business, it is very important to have clear differentiation of OLED from LEDs. Flexible OLED has merits, such as capability to be mounted on the curved wall, which is not easy for LEDs to achieve the feature. There are several approaches to make flexible OLEDs especially among those plastic barrier films that can bring high level of flexibility, which could not be achieved by any conventional lighting method. In this paper, barrier films with various water vapor transmission rate values, including 10(-6) order, are applied, and the conditions to have almost no dark spot growth under 85 degrees C and 85% high temperature/humidity test are shown. Flexible OLED panels are manufactured with the world's first roll-to-roll equipment using plastic barrier film.