Available for Licensing, Device Could Help Pave Way for Next Generation of Monitors, Automotive and Aviation Panel Displays STAMFORD, Conn.--Feb. 14, 2002-- Researchers at Xerox Corporation have invented an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display that can tolerate temperatures of 70 to 100 degrees Celsius for 10,000 hours - which is 10 times better than current OLED industry benchmarks. The breakthrough device overcomes an important barrier - the inability to survive high temperatures - to the widespread adoption of OLED-based displays in extreme environments such as automotive or avionic displays. OLEDs are widely recognized as having the potential to replace liquid-crystal display screens in laptop computers, mobile phones, airplanes, automobiles and more. Unlike liquid-crystal displays, OLEDs emit light that can be viewed from any angle, similar to a television screen. Other advantages: They are expected to be cheaper to manufacture, use less power to operate, emit brighter and sharper images, and "switch'' images faster, meaning that videos or animation run more smoothly. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office notified Xerox that its patent for "Organic Light Emitting Devices Having Improved Performance'' is allowed. The new OLED was invented at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, Xerox's imaging materials research center in Mississauga, Ontario. Along with other OLED intellectual property, Xerox intends to commercialize the technology through licensing and joint development with major display companies. "Companies worldwide are investing millions of dollars in the development and manufacture of OLEDs. Our work could help them overcome current limitations and build display devices that withstand the most rigorous environments,'' said Herve Gallaire, president, Xerox Innovation Group. "This new device exemplifies the bridge Xerox people can create between science and invention -- seeing a problem, identifying the cause of the problem, and then creating a solution.'' According to DisplaySearch, a flat-panel display market research firm, the OLED display market will be a $2.5 billion market worldwide by 2005. Researchers at XRCC began exploring OLED technology in the mid-1990s because the underlying materials were closely related to an existing area of Xerox expertise - photoreceptors. Photoreceptors are the sensitive devices inside xerographic printers and copiers that convert light into electrical charges to make an image. OLED devices are essentially reverse photoreceptors, using electrical charges to make light. An OLED consists of several thin layers of various organic materials - together just 0.1 microns thick, which is 300 times thinner than a hair - sandwiched between glass and an electronic cathode that provides the charge. Xerox has found a way in its new OLED to stabilize the ultra-sensitive middle "emitting layer'' so that it keeps working at high temperatures and doesn't decay or fade out as quickly as current OLEDs. Complementing its high-temperature patent, Xerox also has developed a patent-pending Black Cathode OLED electrode that boosts the display's contrast to create a better picture. Traditional OLEDs need a costly polarizer component to enhance the display contrast, but the Black Cathode eliminates the need for the part. The Xerox scientists behind the new OLED are physicists Hany Aziz and Zoran Popovic and chemist Nan-Xing Hu, all of XRCC. Popovic, a noted OLED researcher, has described some of the team's OLED-related work in articles for prestigious publications such as Science, and has been an invited presenter at conferences for the Society for Information Display and the American Physical Society.