High-power OSTAR LED Thinfilm chips shedding new light on LED technology.
 Team spokesman Dr. Klaus Streubel (left) with Dr. Stefan Illek, both are with OSRAM Opto Semiconductors. |
OSRAM GmbH, based in Regensberg, Germany, together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering, was one of four teams nominated for the prestigious German Future Prize at a ceremony held recently in Berlin. The German Future Prize, now in its eleventh year, is conferred by the German Federal President for outstanding scientific and technical achievement. The award will be presented by President Horst Köhler on December 6 to celebrate outstanding technical, engineering and scientific achievements that have practical applications, are marketable and create jobs.
“With this new LED technology, we have succeeded in producing bright and extremely efficient LEDs that have the potential to become established in general lighting applications,” says Dr. Rüdiger Müller, president and CEO of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors, a subsidiary of OSRAM GmbH based out of Santa Clara, CA.
Müller sees the nomination as an opportunity to draw the public’s attention to the technologies developed by OSRAM Opto Semiconductors and the company’s practical applications.
The nomination applies to Thinfilm chip technology and its use in the OSTAR® family of LEDs. The OSTAR LED has been adapted for a wide range of applications, including mini-projectors and rear projection televisions, night vision equipment in automobiles and for general lighting.
The technical innovation of the OSTAR LED lies in the interplay between various technologies—a new manufacturing process for high-power chips, a perfectly matched package platform, and special optics developed in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering.
“These technologies enable us to achieve particularly high luminances for LEDs of all colors and for infrared light. This is a pioneering innovation,” says Dr. Klaus Streubel, spokesman for the development team at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors.
Light emitting diodes consist of semiconductor crystals that grow on a substrate during manufacture. Up to now this substrate stayed in the diode after manufacture where it absorbed much of the light produced. Now, with thin-film technology developed by OSRAM Opto Semiconductors, the top surface of the light-generating layer can be successfully coated with metal. The metallized side is soldered onto a thin carrier material and serves as a reflector. The original substrate is removed and the result is a thin light-producing layer that lies very close to the top of the LED. The light emitting diode can therefore emit almost all of its light at the top.
The team nominated for the German Future Prize includes the pioneers of Thinfilm technology Dr. Stefan Illek and Dr. Klaus Streubel representing OSRAM, and Dr. Andreas Bräuer from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering.
The nomination of the team for the German Future Prize is the second time this year that OSRAM Opto Semiconductors has been nominated for a major innovation award. In July 2007 the company received the “Best Innovator 2007” award presented jointly by A.T. Kearney and Wirtschaftswoche, a German weekly business news magazine.
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