Germany opens organic materials research center

The Fraunhofer Institute, a German research group, announced today that it opened a new center for organic materials research in Dresden.

The group, which is backed by public and private financing, said the Center for Organic Materials and Electronic Devices Dresden will work on the development of processes for organic semiconductor devices such as organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, and organic solar cells.

"With the combination of microsystems technology and optics technology, COMEDD unifies two fields of innovation, which will be strengthened by this high-tech strategy," said Minister of Research Annette Schavan, in a statement. "Germany will be able to take on a leading role in international competition.

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft said OLEDs are considered the technology of the future for displays and illumination. The group said they require no background lighting, provide a perfect picture from every viewing angle, good color saturation, and use little energy and can be applied to large areas in ultra-thin layers.

Earlier this year, GE Global Research, a Niskayuna, N.Y., division of General Electric (NYSE: GE), reached a milestone in OLED production, demonstrating the world's first roll-to-roll manufactured organic light emitting diodes (see GE shows how to roll out OLEDs).

The demonstration project was part of a four-year, $13 million research collaboration among GE Global Research, Auburn Hills, Mich.-based Energy Conversion Devices (Nasdaq: ENER) and the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology.

GE Global Research said it's aiming to introduce OLED lighting products to market by the year 2010.