Disruptive innovation is a term used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by lowering price or designing for a different set of consumers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Imagine cutting US electrical use for lighting by a third, but still receiving all the benefits of electricity, and more. Imagine flexible computer screens you can roll up like a pen, newspapers that automatically refresh and fold up, and brilliant, energy-efficient full-color displays for television, computers, and signage.
The illustration above is the basic design of an Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Device, or AMOLED. OLEDs, and in particular, AMOLEDs, are going to disrupt your LCD and incandescent bulb worlds very shortly. If you own one of several high end smartphones, your world is already being disrupted, although you may not realize it. Ultimately, and in the not-too-distant future, OLED technology will potentially play a large part in substantially reducing our carbon emissions.
Some of you may have seen the movie "Minority Report." While some of the plot line was steeped in fantasy, the technological effects presented in that movie were timed to coincide with their actual projected state of development--in the movie, by year 2054. Mr. Spielberg was being conservative. The technology is here, now, and it is beginning to ramp up. What you see in this film clip is already being developed.:
First, the technical part. Then, it gets really interesting.
An organic light emitting diode (OLED), is a light-emitting diode (LED) whose emissive electroluminescent layer is composed of a film of organic compounds that emit light when an electric current passes through it. This layer of organic semiconductor material is formed between two electrodes, where at least one of the electrodes is transparent.
Such devices are used in television screens, computer monitors, small, portable system screens such as mobile phones and PDAs, watches, advertising, information and indication. OLEDs can also be used in light sources for general space illumination, and large-area light-emitting elements. Due to their earlier stage of development, OLEDs typically emit less light per unit area than inorganic solid-state based LEDs similarly designed for use as point-light sources.
OLEDs have certain advantages over traditional liquid crystal displays (LCDs). OLED displays do not require a backlight to function. Thus, they can display deep black levels and can be thinner and lighter than LCD panels. OLED displays also naturally achieve higher contrast ratios than either LCD screens using cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) or the more recently developed LED backlights in conditions of low ambient light such as dark rooms.
Because their brilliant colors exponentially outshine traditional LCD's, and because of their efficiency, OLEDs are already being incorporated into the higher-end cell phones and smartphones such as the Samsung Incredible, the Motorola Motoroi, and the new Google phone. Sony produced an OLED TV in 2008, and LG Display has a 15-inch OLED Television monitor now available in Europe, with larger screens due for release next year. At the recent Release of the latest I-Phone, Steve Jobs was reduced to defending his decision not to incorporate an OLED display into the I-phone, even as AT&T and Samsung announced new OLED products in the pipeline.
Well that's really cool! But how does that help save the planet?
Thanks for asking!
As cool as those flexible, colorful, moving displays are going to be, the real Holy Grail of OLED technology is going to be lighting. As in Buildings. As in Cities filled with Buildings. http://www.physorg.com/...
Light-emitting diodes, which employ semiconductors to produce artificial light, could reduce electricity consumption and lighten the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. However, moving this technology beyond traffic signals and laser pointers to illumination for office buildings and homes -- the single largest use of electricity -- requires materials that emit bright, white light cheaply and efficiently. White light is the mix of all the colors, or wavelengths, in the visible spectrum.
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Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), based on organic and/or polymer semiconductor materials, are promising candidates for general lighting applications, as they can cover large-area displays or panels using low-cost processing techniques.
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White light from OLEDs can be adjusted from cooler to warmer whites, making these materials easy to use in office or home environments. Buildings account for more than 40 percent of carbon emissions in the United States, so replacing even a fraction of conventional lighting with OLEDs could result in a significant reduction in electricity use.
GE, Konica Minolta, Philips and others are working on OLED lighting applications in everything from small chandeliers, to peel-able light, to decorative OLED outerwear. In the area of Displays, flexible, roll-up display prototypes (imagine rolling your computer up into a pen) have been produced by Sony and Universal Display Corporation. This OLED mural, produced by Philips, is kinda artsy:
Research suggests that AMOLED lighting can be up to ten times as efficient as incandescent lighting, and three times as efficient as fluorescent lighting currently in use in just about every building you lay eyes on. The Obama Administration has taken notice, and OLED-related research has been funded substantially by the DOE and the American Recovery Act.
Here is a good article from Popular Mechanics addressing the benefits of LED's and OLED's, specifically how they will shape the future of lighting.
Over the next decade, the familiar ways we light our world, from incandescent light bulbs to overhead fluorescent tubes, may go the way of the oil lamp.
At least that's the future envisioned by the Department of Energy (DOE). The agency announced $37 million in grants earlier this month in its sixth round of funding for solid-state lighting. The cash will go toward basic research, product development and manufacturing of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and carbon-containing organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).
The potential return is enormous:
Beyond toughness and cost savings, the environment stands to gain from mercury-free solid-state lighting as well. Widespread deployment by 2030 could cut U.S. electricity use for lighting by a third, according to the DOE, and thus make a big dent in energy-related carbon emissions.
There are, to be sure, many issues to be worked out before OLED lighting becomes a reality. One of the more significant issues is lifetime of the materials, as well as their general luminescence compared to existing light sources. Another is producing them on a massive scale, but the groundwork is being laid pairing materials suppliers with firms supplying the actual architecture. Non-organic LED's are currently at the cutting edge of lighting applications, and it will take several years before OLEDs are able to be produced in comparable scale. Be that as it may, this is what you will begin to see next year as the technology takes off:
H/T California.
This is the Future. It's reassuring to see that the Administration is on top of it.
Update: I'm adding this CBS News report which came out two days after the above Diary. Interestingly they use the same footage from "Minority Report."
http://www.cbsnews.com/...