As surface light sources, OLEDs have a great potential for many exterior and interior lighting applications. Surface light is needed for illuminated areas in the car interior and for indicators and rear lights in the exterior lighting. Three years ago OLEDs could stand up to automotive specifications for temperatures of 85°C no longer than two or three hours. Now come Osram with an OLED that works in a laboratory long-term test for several hunderd hours with temperatures up to 85°C .
Temperature stability is one of the greatest technical challenges to the development of OLEDs. To use OLEDS for automotive lighting applications, they have to meet the specifications of the Tier-1 suppliers and car manufacturers. The new temperature resistance of Osram’s new OLEDs now stands to make automotive OLED applications viable. A further progress in plastic encapsulation, three dimensional surfaces, colour selection and cost reduction will make the surface light source OLED to an ideal supplement to the related technology of the point light source LED.
OLEDs are very thin films like electroluminescent foils, but they need no additional electronic converter. They are transparent or have a metallic body colour, work with DC voltage, have an instant response time like LEDs , a low power consumption and heat generation, and a high efficacy and good color rendering index. OLEDs are already used for displays in smartphones, radios, small TVs and for design lamps in the general lighting. Future applications for OLEDs are large displays in all mentioned devices and large, bright and homogeneous illuminated areas for surface lamps in the general lighting and automotive interior and exterior lighting with the highest efficacy of all light sources.
