Transparent Conducting Oxides and Undercoat Technologies for Economical OLED Lighting

Economics is a key factor for application of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) in general lighting relative to OLED flat panel displays that can handle high-cost materials such as indium tin oxide (ITO) or indium zinc oxide (IZO) as the transparent conducting oxide (TCO) on display glass. For OLED lighting to penetrate into general illumination, economics and sustainable materials are critical. The issues with ITO are exacerbated by export controls from China, one of the major sources of elemental indium. There fore, ITO is not sustainable because of fluctuating costs and the United States' dependency on other nations such as China.