Offset Printing

Printing could add to the cost effectiveness of OLEDs in lighting applications

Monday 17. March 2008 - Lighting utilizing organic light emitting diodes (OLED) could benefit from printing as a manufacturing technique because it can add to its cost effectiveness, says a new report from NanoMarkets, an industry analysis firm.

OLEDs have advantages over other lighting technologies because they combine high brightness with an ability to be fabricated on a thin, flexible display. These are properties that open up opportunities for OLED lighting in architectural lighting, vehicular lighting, and other areas says NanoMarkets. With the improvements in functional printing and the arrival of small molecules inks, it is likely that a higher proportion of OLEDs will be printed because of greater cost effectiveness, states the report. NanoMarkets projects that OLED and other printed lighting markets could possibly reach almost $2.5 billion in the next seven years.

About the Report
As new opportunities rapidly emerge in energy efficient solid-state lighting, new manufacturing approaches are also assuming more importance and these include printing. Electroluminescent (EL) lighting has been printed for years, but this report goes beyond EL and includes discussions of other forms of printed lighting, including systems based on carbon nanotube emissions and especially on OLEDs. The report, Printable Electronics Market Outlook: Printed Lighting, reviews the market potential for all of the main applications for printed lighting from simple backlighting applications to sophisticated architectural lighting. It also provides data on the performance criteria for printed lighting and profiles some of the leading firms and government projects exploring printed lighting technology, discusses recent events in this field. Finally, it provides an eight-year market forecast of the revenues that NanoMarkets expects from printed lighting with break outs by both technology and applications segment.