Development engineers at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors have improved two crucial organic light emitting diode (OLED) characteristics, and created a warm white OLED with an efficiency of 46lm/W, and a life of more than 5000 hours.

Dr. Karsten Heuser, director of OLED Lighting Technology at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors explained: “Our development team has reached a real milestone for warm white OLEDs with an efficiency of 46 lm/W (CIE of 0.46/0.42 measured in the integrating sphere) and a life of more than 5000 hours. With this significant increase in efficiency and life, OLED flat light sources are approaching the values of conventional lighting solutions and are therefore becoming attractive for a wide variety of applications.”

The color rendering index (CRI) of the almost 100 cm² prototype is 80. The company hopes that by March 2009, development should be so far advanced that a demonstrator for an energy-saving OLED flat light module comprising several tiles will be able to deliver an overall luminous flux of 500lm from a power consumption of less than 10W.