Large area lighting applications with organic dye embedded flexible film

Abstract

A flexible large area lighting devices have been demonstrated by PDMS films. The (polydimethylsiloxane) PDMS films doped with organic/inorganic materials. The PDMS film is favorable due to its heat stability, good transparency, and flexibility. This study aimed to combine both organic and inorganic materials for flexible large area lighting applications. The architecture consists of blue LEDs coupled to a leaky waveguide that is covered with the PDMS film. The white light was generated with the poly (9, 9-dioctylfluorene-co-benzothiadiazole) F8BT blended into the PDMS slurry. Organic wavelength conversion materials were chosen owing to their ability to decompose in nature. The more conventional inorganic phosphors such as YAG are difficult to decompose and may present environmental issues which can bring concerns in many lighting applications. These flexible PDMS films had thicknesses of 100 mu m, 440 mu m, and 980 mu m. The resulting white light devices had color temperatures of 8944K, 4863K, and 4429K, respectively. In this study, we have also compared the performance of the organic versus conventional YAG phosphor embedded films.