Natcore Technology Inc (NTCXF)

[cowboy pete]

Flexible OLED needs deposition technology

University of Toronto photonics lab just announced and demonstrated the first functional flexible OLED
(link below)

The article goes on to describe of the device which is an OLED light on flexible substrate (there is a pic in the article) and it's wide potential for use worldwide.

Here is the part that I think should concern Natcore, from the article:

"However, the nature of OLEDs means a lot of light tends to get trapped in their structures, resulting in poor efficiencies of 20-30 per cent. The established way to avoid this problem is to fabricate the devices on substrates with a high refractive index, such as crystal glass, which can channel the light outwards and thereby improve efficiency. But glass isn't flexible, so flexible OLEDs have had to stay largely in the poor-efficiency camp.

This is all set to change, according to Michael Helander of the University of Toronto. Helander, working with colleagues at Toronto and Queen's University, Ontario, has come up with a way to keep OLEDs on flexible plastic while boosting efficiency. Instead of using an entire substrate of high-index material to channel light outwards, the researchers insert a very thin layer on top of the substrate, beneath the OLED. This high-index layer - tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5), just 50-100nm thick - appears to have the same effect as making the entire substrate high-index, and demonstrates an efficiency (for green light) of 63 per cent.

Michele Muccini, an expert in OLEDs at the Bologna Research Area of the Italian National Research Council, says the development by Helander and colleagues has 'great value' for the field of organic optoelectronics. However, he adds that low-cost mass production remains a challenge, because of the logistics and cost of processing Ta2O5 by sputtering. 'Finding alternatives to these materials and processing will be part of the next steps of the development strategy,' he says.

(bold type is mine)
Seems an ideal fit for our non sputtering technology. Can someone alert Natcore about this?


http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2011/October/31101102.asp