PROCESS FOR FABRICATING OLED LIGHTING PANELS

摘要

Systems and methods for the design and fabrication of OLEDs (100,200), including high-performance large-area OLEDs (300), are provided. Variously described fabrication processes may be used to deposit and pattern bus lines (320,510,800A,800B,800C,2410) and/or insulators (2420) using vapor deposition such as vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE) through a shadow mask (810), and may avoid multiple photolithography steps. Bus lines (320,510,800A,800B,800C, 2410) and/or insulators (2420) may be formed with a smooth profile and a gradual sidewall transition. Such smooth profiles may, for example, reduce the probability of electrical shorting at the bus lines (320,510,800A,800B, 800C,2410). Other vapor deposition systems and methods may include, among other, sputter deposition, e-beam evaporation and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). A final profile of the bus line (320,510,800A,800B,800C,2410) and/or insulator (2420) may substantially correspond to the profile as deposited. A single OLED device (100,200,300) may also be formed with relatively large dimension, e.g. a shortest dimension in plan view of greater than approximately 2 cm, or an active area (2430) greater than approximately 10 cm2 plan view.