Flexible OLED light – a dream comes true for many product designers. The PI-SCALE project funded by the European Commission has been successfully completed.
In December 2018, the BMBF-funded research project "Transparent Organic Photovoltaics (OPV) Glass Facade" (project name: TOP) ended as part of the funding initiative "Organic Electronics - Fundamentals of Technology and Application Scenarios." The aim of the joint project was to develop semi-transparent solar foils with a transparency of 15-30% at an efficiency of 8-10% and a suitable encapsulation. The consortium consisted of CreaPhys GmbH (Dresden), Fraunhofer FEP (Dresden), Fraunhofer ISE (Freiburg), Heliatek GmbH (Dresden) and the University of Ulm.
Up to now, OLEDs have been used exclusively as a novel lighting technology in luminaires and lamps. However, flexible organic technology can offer much more: as an active lighting surface, it can be combined with a wide variety of materials, not just to modify but to revolutionise the functionality and design of countless existing products. To exemplify this, the Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP (Dresden, Germany) together with the company EMDE development of light GmbH will be presenting hybrid flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLEDs) integrated into textile designs within the EU-funded project PI-SCALE for the first time at LOPEC (19-21 March 2019 in Munich, Germany) as examples of some of the many possible applications.