Innovative manufacturing processes and in-line monitoring techniques for the OLED and thin film and organic photovoltaic industries (CIGS and OPV)

Opto-electronic devices are opening exciting new applications everyday. With new display options using pliable substrates such as plastic and flexible glass, OLEDs manufacturers are bringing a wide range of new applications in lighting (e.g. energy efficient lighting) and different type of displays. Similarly, with the emergence of thin-film technologies in the solar cells market, new applications ranging from installations on curved surfaces to building-integrated PV has become possible. However, to meet the industry requirements for mass production, including low cost, manufacturing volumes and efficiency, many challenges still need to be addressed. These challenges for OPV, OLED and CIGs are scale-up from laboratory to mass production, selection of efficient manufacturing processes, employing inspection, control and measurement techniques to improve yield, quality and time-to-market. OLEDSOLAR aims to tackle these challenges by developinginnovative manufacturing processes for critical steps in the production of opto-electronic devices including OLEDs, OPVs and CIGs solar cells. The proposed activities include reconfigurable high yield (>10% improvement) processes to be scaled up, tested at pilot lines and implemented in production line for validation. A complete system of inspection, quality control, functional testing and measurements using advance system and sensors will be optimised in the project for efficient manufacturing of opto-electronics parts. Recycling and re-use strategies will be developed allowing resource efficiency and reduction of high value product wastes. Automation and advance processing software will be developed for overall control and monitoring of roll-to-roll (R2R) and sheet-to-sheet (S2S) manufacturing process. During 36 months, a multidisciplinary team of leading RTOs and industries in this field will dedicate their resources and effort to perform proposed activities in 8 WPs and guarantee the maximum impact of OLEDSOLAR project.