Universal Display Corporation announced that the company has been awarded a $499,999 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to demonstrate further advances in its novel thin-film encapsulation technology.

Universal Display is focused on the technology’s use as a cost-effective, protective barrier for flexible OLED displays and lighting. The company’s thin-film encapsulation technology also has applicability to a variety of other thin-film electronics including solar cells, batteries and sensors.

In the Phase II program, Universal Display will focus on demonstrating that its environmentally-friendly, single-layer approach exhibits manufacturing scalability and prospective cost effectiveness. This program follows a successful Phase I program during which the company, working with Princeton University, demonstrated that this approach has the performance characteristics to be an ultra-hermetic, transparent and flexible permeation barrier that can provide OLEDs with the long-term operational stability for a variety of demanding conditions.

“We are very pleased to have the opportunity to continue our work with the National Science Foundation to demonstrate the commercial potential of our novel encapsulation technology,” said Steven V. Abramson, president and CEO of Universal Display. “Encapsulation technology that is both high-performance and cost-effective is well recognized as a critical element to the commercialization of flexible OLED displays and lighting. This
environmentally-friendly, single-layer approach also has the potential to provide value to a wide variety of other flexible and rigid, thin-film electronic applications.”