Organic Light Emitting Diodes

Technology has changed our lives in ways that we only imagined in our dreams. Imagine a high quality and flexible display that is simple and low cost. Television or computer screens the size of a wall, but only as thin as a sheet of plastic. With colors so bright and vibrant you will feel like your right in the action whether you?re watching your favorite movie or playing your favorite computer game. Sound very unlikely with today?s bulky, heavy, and power hungry Cathode Ray Tubes many times referred to as CRT?s. They are in our TV?s and computers giving off radiation and eating up our hard earn money. They have become so abundant and easy to manufacture that you can obtain a decent sized computer monitor for less than $100. We?ve tried those sleek and stylish LCD and Plasma screens, but when you look at one you see something missing. Something you could only see in a nice bright and clear CRT display. LCD?s have improved greatly since their first appearance in the large screen display area, but there is only so much that can be done. Plasmas are great also, but they are highly complex and expensive. They suffer from poor brightness and picture quality (zdnet.com). There is a technology being developed in research labs around the world that could change all this (Ibm.com). It?s called an OLED display, and it could truly change the way we look at technology.

OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode, sometime they are referred to as Organic Light Emitting Devices. OLED?s are made from an organic material that has luminescent properties that glows when voltage passes through it. They operate on the principle of converting electrical energy into light, a phenomenon known as electro luminescence. The basic construction of a single OLED consists of an organic material or a combination of organic materials between to metallic electrodes on a plate of glass. At least one of the metals needs to be transparent in order to observe the light that is emitted. Indium-tin-oxide is a metallic substance that is both conductive and transparent; the other metal can be reflective or also transparent depending on the intended use of the display. The electrodes are then connected to a voltage source. When current is supplied the organic material?s atoms react with the electric energy and emits energy in the form of light that may have a tinge depending on the organic material used.