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Today we will have a brief introduction to the next generation lighting technology – OLED. OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode and is a display device which covers up carbon-based films between two charged electrodes, one being a transparent anode and the other a metallic cathode. These organic films have a hole-transport layer, an electron-transport layer, a hole-injection layer  as well as an emissive layer. when the OLED is connected to power, the voltage is circulated in its cell after which the injected negative and positive charges gets themselves recombined within the emissive layer which creates electro luminescent light. apart from the functioning of LCD’s which require the feature of backlighting, the display of OLED are very emissive devices which means they emit light instead of modulating transmitted or reflected light.

The technology of OLED was evolved by Eastman Kodak in the early 1980’s. The popularity of the technology is gaining pace at a rapid speed and is replacing the LCD technology in several handheld devices such as cell phones and PDA’s. The reason behind this is that the OLED is thinner, lighter, faster and brighter than LCD’s. Moreover, they also use less power, provide high contrasting features as well as are quite cheaper to manufacture.

Types of OLED’s

Transparent OLED

Such OLED’s have all components transparent and when they are turned off, they are up to 85 percent transparent than their substrate. When this type of an OLED is turned on, it allows the light to pass in both the directions. Such an OLED is very useful for head-up displays.

Top-emitting OLED

OLED’s of this type holds a substrate which is either reflective or opaque. Top-emitting OLED’s are greatly used by manufacturers in smart card and are very suitable for active-matrix design.

White OLED

White OLED’s are designed to emit white light which is brighter, uniformed and energy efficient than the light emitted by fluorescent lights. Since, OLED’s can also be made on larger sheets, they can be easily replaced by currently used florescent lights. They are also very useful for reducing cost of energy.

Foldable OLED

Foldable OLED’s are made having its substrates made of very flexible plastic or metallic foil which makes them very durable as well as very light weighted. Use of foldable OLED in PDA’s and cell phones can reduce the risk of breakage.