OLED research: General Electric saw the light - and it bends

A revolution in lighting is on the horizon with the bendable, paper-thin technology known as OLEDS, or organic light-emitting diodes — and the sky’s the limit when it comes to bright ideas on how to use them. So, GE asked industrial design students from the Cleveland Institute of Art to imagine just how the breakthrough technology, currently under development at GE’s Global Research Centers, might actually bend and stretch its way into everyday life in the years ahead. The video below spotlights some of their best ideas.

The Cleveland students delivered hundreds of concepts that are now under review at GE Consumer and Industrial’s Nela Park facility in Cleveland and at GE’s Global Research Center in Niskayuna, N.Y. Some of the real-world applications they envisioned include concealed, under-shelf lighting for retailers; flexible signage for advertisers; illuminated stairs for architects; light-up wallpaper for decorators; and illuminated safety outerwear for emergency services personnel.

Thin is in: “Many of these potential applications conceived by the Cleveland Institute of Art students align nicely with what lighting designers, architects and other thought leaders have told us they want to accomplish with OLEDs,” says John Strainic, global product general manager of lighting at GE Consumer & Industrial, which is where GE’s lighting business is centered.

GE projects its first commercialized OLED products will be introduced in late 2010 or 2011. The research into OLEDs — which are thin, organic materials sandwiched between two electrodes that illuminate when an electrical charge is applied — draws on years of breakthrough experiments that have been underway at our Global Research Centers.

In December, the GRC team rang in the 2008 holiday season with a first-ever OLED Christmas tree lighting. And last year the GRC scientists achieved a major research milestone by demonstrating the world’s first roll-to-roll manufactured OLED lighting devices. This process for producing OLEDs has been likened to a newspaper printing process and so-called roll-to-roll manufacturing is seen as a key factor in making OLED lighting commercially viable in the general lighting industry.

Stairway to heaven: GE challenged the students to conceptualize designs that would take advantage of two key attributes that commercialized GE OLEDs are expected to feature: flexibility and thinness. This contrasts with the rigid glass form that other companies appear to be pursuing

Working with Douglas Paige, associate professor of industrial design at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and students in a “Future Design Center” class, GE conducted a series of idea generation sessions in which students were asked to develop feasible application concepts using OLED technology.

The first semester of the class focused on research, ideas and concepts. Students in the second semester picked up where students from the first semester left off and focused on modeling, prototyping phases, and final product recommendations.

“Year after year, a primary objective of the class is to put our industrial design students in a consultative role with area companies,” says Paige. “Our work with GE was a perfect marriage.”

* Read the announcement
* Read about the OLED Christmas tree
* Watch the OLED tree video
* Hear about OLEDs straight from GE’s scientists on their blog
* Learn more about OLEDs
* Learn more about GE’s Nela Park facility