Aju Business Daily

SEOUL -- LG Chem, a petrochemical and battery-making arm of South Korea's LG Group, partnered with Universal Display Corporation (UDC), an American developer of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies and materials, to work together for the development of a new luminescent layer

LG Chem said Wednesday that it has signed a partnership with UDC to improve the performance of OLED luminous layers.

"We expect synergies to be very large as the two companies with the best technology in each field work together," Yoo Ji-young, vice present at LG Chem's advanced materials division, said in a statement.
"In line with the expansion of the OLED market, we will produce luminous layers that greatly improve the performance of wide color gamut and supply them to customers on time."

The OLED research company based in Ewing, New Jersey, has many license rights in phosphorescent based OLEDs and also flexible, transparent and stacked OLEDs for display and lighting applications with its phosphorescent OLED technologies and materials licensed and supplied to Samsung, LG and other companies.

LG Chem said the two companies would find the best combination of two materials -- LG Chem's low voltage, long life "Host" and UDC's efficient high-performance phosphorescent "Dopant"-- to produce products with the performance of wide color gamut (WCG), which increases color reproducibility to reproduce images similar to actual color in a display. WCG is another step towards more realistic TV images and enables users to enjoy richer, more lifelike colors.

OLED consists of several layers, including a luminous layer that actually emits light and consists of materials called Host that produces light by combining electrons injected into a common layer with a positive light as well as dopants that emit a certain color. LG's Chem's host has a good lifespan due to its ability to transport charges at low voltages, while UDC's phosphor dopant features excellent efficiency, high color reproduction and longevity.

In April, LG Chem carried out a structural change to produce high-tech materials and agreed to acquire DuPont's technical assets related to soluble OLED, a core platform for next-generation displays. LG Chem's sister companies, LG Display and LG electronics, have stepped up the development of OLED technologies as OLED TVs have become the mainstream in the global TV market.

LG Electronics shocked the global TV industry by showcasing a 65-inch OLED TV with a rollable display that can appear and disappear from a base unit, at a consumer electronics show in Las Vegas in January this year.