Opportunities for Encapsulation in OLED Lighting

Published: October 18, 2011    Category: Advanced Materials OLED Lighting

In the nascent OLED lighting industry, the focus is on efficiency and reducing total cost of ownership. Just as in other OLED markets, encapsulation is currently dominated by cover glass/getter/epoxy schemes, which have proven sufficient, if not ideal, for making the rigid lighting luminaires in production today. 

However, the relatively early-stage nature of this market, combined with the knowledge that high volume—and preferably roll-to-roll (R2R)—manufacturing will be necessary to compete in the long-term, has meant that OLED panel manufacturers have been quite willing to explore development of non-glass encapsulation technologies.  For this reason, OLED encapsulation suppliers can distinguish themselves by developing proprietary solutions that will give them long-term competitive advantages.

In addition, encapsulation strategies that enable partial flexibility, or at least some measure of bendability or conformability, may be of particular interest.  For example, multilayer dyad laminates that enable conformability may be useful for creating a competitive advantage and growing market share.  On the other hand, small volume, niche OLED applications with extremely high performance requirements and fewer cost pressures may preferentially adopt conformally-deposited dyad layers, such as are possible using ALD methods.

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