Nanomarkets released a new white paper about solution-Processed OLEDs. They estimate that in order for the OLED market to grow significantly for TV and lighting applications, companies must adopt solution-processable materials. Soluble OLEDs have been researched for years with very little outcome outside of the lab. But Nanomarkets believes that the current problems can be fixed, and are worth fixing.
Soluble OLED materials and appropriate processes are being researched by Sumitomo, DuPont, Pioneer, UDC, Solvay, Marck and others. They estimate that the first panels to be made using these materials will be Pioneer's (together with Mitsubishi) OLED lighting panels - planned for 2014. Nanomarkets thinks that if Pioneer succeeded, it may push GE back into the OLED game with their own soluble material solutions. It's interesting that Nanomarkets does not mention Panasonic's OLED TV prototype that uses Sumitomo's P-OLED materials.
Nanomarkets estimates that solution-processing materials will reach about 26% of the total OLED materials market in 2015, and this will grow to 47% by 2019 (over $800 million in revenues). Nanomarkets estimates that revenues in 2013 will reach $50 million - which is interesting as there aren't any OLED panels actually made from these materials (apart for some small PMOLED displays), and $50 million seems to large an amount for R&D only materials.
You can download the white paper here.
Just two days ago Nanomarkets released another white paper, in which they discuss whether there's a real market for novel encapsulation technologies (focusing on OLED and PV applications).
