LEO ambitions innovative manufacturing concept & routes towards high performance bendable and low cost OLEDs for general and mood lighting, merging conventional and proven technologies with disruptive approaches (e.g. substrate, architecture, hybrid processing, layouts). R&D activities will be ramped-up from lab scale feasibility to pilot line scale demonstration, delivering show off lighting systems with the help of external lighting manufacturers (Artemide, Technology Luminaires). The project targets the introduction of novel materials combinations (conformable & functionalized metallic substrate, Indium free electrodes and solution-processable organic materials) in large area colour tuneable top emission white OLEDs. Besides dry processing of large area tandem stacks (> 500 cm2), a novel hybrid process flow will be set-up whereby stacks will be wet processed up to the 1st emitting layer prior device completion by dry processing. With common and innovative building blocks (substrate with integrated interconnecting, 80 % transparent top electrode, 1E-6 g/m²/day WVTR scratch resistant thin film encapsulation, 50 % out-coupling efficiency), these two complementary approaches will lead to demonstrations of large area warm/cold white macro-pixels and hybrid full colours RGB OLEDs. LEO will address cost reduction at materials and process levels which represent more than 80% of the total cost of OLED lighting devices, according to a recent study. Leverage will be sought at mostly all layers of the stack with cost impacts at materials, device and system scales. In order to combine necessary and complementary capacities to reach its ambitious goals, LEO has gathered all stakeholders of the OLED lighting device fabrication value chain (except equipment supplier), including substrate and organic materials suppliers (AC&CS, Cynora), an OLED manufacturer (OSRAM OLED) and recognized research centres in the field of OLEDs and life cycle analysis (CEA, CNR, Gaiker).

Organic heavy metal free fluorescent materials show exceptional potential for use in new-generation light sources, such as organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) and organic lasers. It is anticipated that these new materials will enable organic electronic devices to be constructed with higher efficiency, simpler device structures, lower fabrication costs, and reduced environmental impact. Amongst the different types of materials currently being investigated, two show particular promise: • Fluorescence materials exhibiting thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) for use in OLEDs in displays and lighting devices . • Fluorescent materials with low thresholds for amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) for use in organic lasers in spectroscopy and telecommunication . However, in order to develop these materials for commercial industrial use, several challenges still remain to be overcome, including: • Theories explaining TADF and ASE are still in their infancy. • Organic material samples need to be extremely pure (>99.5%). Consequently, new synthesis routes need to be developed. • TADF emitters for OLEDs have lifetimes that fall well short of industry requirements. • Fluorescence emitters for lasers need high available optical gain, solution processability and narrow emission spectra with high efficiency. • Properties of TADF and lasing materials are very sensitive to structural changes. Thus, the overall goal of the MEGA project is to help develop organic heavy metal free fluorescent materials for commercial use by tackling these challenges. In order to develop the new materials, the following S&T objectives will be targeted: • Objective 1: Screen compounds with TADF or lasing properties by means of molecular modelling • Objective 2: Synthesise most promising compounds with TADF or lasing properties • Objective 3: Characterise most promising compounds with TADF or lasing properties • Objective 4: Test materials in device structures to meet industry requirement

The lifetime, reliability, and efficiency of organic light emitting diodes (OLED) are critical factors precluding a number of novel devices from entering the market. Yet, these stability issues of OLEDs are poorly understood due to their notorious complexity, since multiple degradation and failure channels are possible at different length- and timescales. Current experimental and theoretical models of OLED stability are, to a large extent, empirical. They do not include information about the molecular and meso-scales, which prevents their integration into the workflow of the industrial R&D compound design. It is the idea of this project to integrate various levels of theoretical materials characterization into a single software package, to streamline the research workflows in order for the calculations to be truly usable by materials engineers, complementary to experimental measurements. Towards this goal, this project brings together the academic and industrial expertise of the leading experimental and theoretical groups in the field of organic semiconductors.