OLED Luminaires: Device Arrays with 99.6% Geometric Fill Factor Structured by Femtosecond Laser Ablation

The plethora of design opportunities renders organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) ideal luminaires for general lighting applications. Progressing from lab-scale device concepts to large-area applications calls for smart device designs that are scalable and, at the same time, unsusceptible to resistive losses within the electrodes. By employing direct pulsed femtosecond laser structuring, we fabricate OLED luminaires comprising monolithically interconnected OLED arrays. We determine the laser ablation thresholds and the optimized process parameters for all functional layers. The clean laser cuts with precise ablation depths show no detectable damage to adjacent layers or any ridges, hence avoiding unwanted short-cuts or device isolation. All processes are scalable. The 3-fold structuring of the OLED luminaire is confined within 45 μm and hence below the resolution limit of the human eye, yielding a geometric fill factor beyond 99% and therefore a very homogeneous device perception.