The Parliamentary Secretary in the BMBF, Rachel Thomas, informed today in OLED manufacturing facility at Philips in Aachen on the light of the future. The area of ​​OLED lighting, Philips is a rapidly growing business field. In May the company announced to invest around 40 million euros in a new OLED manufacturing facility in Aachen, to increase the OLED production capacity significantly. The Aachen lighting manufacturers are so successful that even companies in Asia such as Konica-Minolta cooperate with Philips to manufacture OLED modules here.

During a tour with Karl Spekl, site manager at Philips Aachen, and Dr. Dietrich Bertram, General Manager of Philips Technology GmbH announced, Rachel, State Secretary of the OLED manufacturing facility and the new, extremely flat and energy-efficient light sources. Then was the visit to the Philips Lumiblade Creative Labs on the program. The Creative Lab Philips operates an open platform for OLED cooperation among industry, academia and the public. Designers and engineers from the lighting industry, but also an inventor and tinkerer, and students can develop locally with the support of professionals new lamps and lamp designs.

Secretary Rachel pointed out in Aachen on the continuation of research funding in the field of organic light emitting diodes. The recently launched publication of the BMBF for organic electronics puts her focus on the OLED (organic light emitting diodes) and OPV (organic photovoltaics). The BMBF is this up to 60 million € in pioneering research projects in Germany are available. The announcement is based on the previous innovation alliances "OLED 2015" and "Organic Photovoltaics" at the high-tech strategy to the federal government. The Innovation Alliance OLED 2015 was adopted by the BMBF in 2006 brought together with companies such as BASF, Merck, Philips and Osram on the road. Important is the commitment of the participating companies to be provided by the BMBF, the 100 million euros in R & D funds own significant investments here in Germany make. Total federal government and business invest more than 800 million euros in research into the OLEDs and in Germany. With success: the world, German researchers and companies are leaders in OLED development. The best and most efficient OLEDs are from Germany. The first products of the major lamp manufacturers are on the market since 2010.

OLEDs consist of thin layers of organic materials, plastics in the broadest sense, which produce light when an electrical voltage. Thus they give her soft, diffuse light from surface. They represent a further element in the change in technology to the semiconductor light dar. With the light from semiconductors (including, LED and OLED) can now save up to two thirds of the required energy and CO 2 emissions. But what is special about the new generation lighting, the professionals such as designers and architects can get excited? The special properties of OLEDs, such as flexibility, transparency and a very flat design allowing lighting designers and architects design a completely new light. In the long term here, even the windows are expected to serve as a light source at night for the room.