Race for the Sun

It's the first day of spring.

I can always tell when I drive due east up the hill to my west campus office in the morning and the sun is squarely in my eyes. This is a great time to watch the sunrise and the sunsets. The sun literally races to the north during the next few weeks.

Speaking of the sun and races.

GE has made a major announcement that will make for a new generation of electron to photon materials and verse-visa.

Here's the announcement, with thanks to the Energy Blog.


GE Demonstrates World's First ''Roll-to-Roll''
Manufactured Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs)

Newspaper printing-like processing key to making this next generation lighting technology low cost, commercially viable

NISKAYUNA, N.Y.-- March 11, 2008--GE Global Research, the centralized research organization of General Electric (NYSE: GE), and GE Consumer & Industrial, today announced the successful demonstration of the world’s first roll-to-roll manufactured organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting devices. This demonstration is a key step toward making OLEDs and other high performance organic electronics products at dramatically lower costs than what is possible today.

OLEDs are thin, organic materials sandwiched between two electrodes, which illuminate when an electrical charge is applied. They represent the next evolution in lighting products. Their widespread design capabilities will provide an entirely different way for people to light their homes or businesses.

Moreover, OLEDs have the potential to deliver dramatically improved levels of efficiency and environmental performance, while achieving the same quality of illumination found in traditional products in the marketplace today with less electrical power.

“Researchers have long dreamed of making OLEDs using a newspaper-printing like roll-to-roll process,” said Anil Duggal, manager of GE’s Advanced Technology Program in Organic Electronics. “Now we’ve shown that it is possible." (clip)

.

Duggal continued, “Beyond OLEDs, this technology also could have broader impact in the manufacturing of other organic electronic devices such as organic photovoltaics for solar energy conversion, sensors, and roll-up displays.” (clip)

Actually, the technology was developed by GE with the help of a solar company.

GE researchers provided the organic electronics technology and were responsible for developing the roll-to-roll processes, while ECD provided its unique roll-to-roll equipment-building expertise to build the machine that manufactures the OLED devices.

ECD Senior Vice President Nancy Bacon said, “This program was a major step in developing high volume roll-to-roll manufacturing for OLEDs and other organic semiconductor devices. (clip) We currently are utilizing this technology to mass produce our flexible, durable and lightweight UNI-SOLAR brand solar laminates.

So, this reverse PV lighting manufacturing breakthrough has come about because of the advances in PV manufacturing.

It demonstrates how a race for the sun,

can bring about a completely new class of materials

in a solid state revolution

that convert light to energy and energy to light.

It beats the tar out of killing each other.




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