Research and Development

Liquid crystal display (LCD) widely used now for flat panel displays is thinner and lighter than CRT displays and PDP, but it requires a back light separately because it is not a light-emitting type. Compared to this, an organic EL display of a light-emitting type has advantages that it can be made to be thinner and lighter than LCDs, and power consumption is less and visibility is higher.

In Konica Minolta, we are developing materials of organic EL which are drawing attention as a next generation technology, by using a design for materials and a precision organic composition technology which we pioneered for development of photosensitive materials and of dyes.

As an organic EL material, a “fluorescence emission type” has already been commercialized. However, a “phosphorescence emission type” has overwhelming advantages, and it is expected to be the next-generation material. In Konica Minolta, we paid close attention to “phosphorescence emission type” materials, and we have been studied blue emission materials considered to be difficult in principle. Among them, we developed organic EL element having higher emission efficiency, by devising emission host materials having shorter wavelength. Newly developed material CDBP is based on a simple structure change in which a methyl group is put in CBP that is conventionally only an emission host material, from the viewpoint of chemical structure, but its electronic conditions are expected to change greatly, and the phosphorescence wavelength is expected to be shortened by about 50 nm.

It has been confirmed that a series of materials in the course of development can be applied not only to a blue color, but also to a green color and a red color.