German research ministry promises funding for organic electronics

 

Luminous magazine advertisements made of OLEDs or glass facades that collect energy by means of integrated organic solar cells are only two of several projects in Saxony that will be funded by the German federal ministry for research with up to €4M. The engineers and scientists, together with international partners, are expected to bring their research projects to market maturity and thus create new production plants and jobs in Germany.

Dominik Gronarz, head of the industry and research exchange platform Organic Electronics Saxony (OES), is satisfied with the government funding: “Thanks to this support, our members and their Japanese and British partners will be able to commercialise the technologies even faster and therefore reinforce the Saxonian leadership position in organic electronics.”

The funding will be used to initiate cooperation with partners such as Japanese Yonezawa and Cambridge in the UK, in order to jointly prepare production sites for organic electronics in Dresden and Chemnitz.

One of the projects that is already approaching market maturity is the invention of the Chemnitz-based company SIOD, which has developed an especially cost-efficient process for the printing of OLEDs as “luminous paper”. Possible applications include car commercials in magazines that are illuminated for a few minutes after opening. The process has already been laboratory-proven and is now being prepared for serial production.