NSF Award
9861521
9861521<br/> This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will make a low-cost, low-power, lightweight electroluminescent illumination source for use in flat panel displays, based on novel inorganic-organic hybrid materials. Though 90 percent of all current flat panel displays are based on liquid crystal displays (LCD), LCDs are difficult to make, consume a great deal of power, cannot be viewed in bright light and must be mounted on glass substrates making them fragile. These failings have spurred development into new display technology. To date, inorganic-based systems, while robust, are not easily processible. Organic-based systems are easily processible, but are not sufficiently robust. The proposed materials will possess the robustness of inorganic systems combined with the ease of processing offered by organic systems (e.g., solution casting). This project will progress in three stages: 1) synthesis of the molecular precursors; 2) casting films of these precursors onto ITO coated substrates; and 3) evaluating the electroluminescent behavior of the final device.<br/> The proposed device is expected to generate blue light from a 1" diagonal display at voltages ~10V and have a luminosity ~1000 cd/m2. Potential commercial applications are small area back-lights mounted on highly portable displays which have a U.S. market potential of $1 billion.
