Samsung Display teamed up with TSK to solve pain points in the blue OLED industry

The comprehensive upgrade of OLED display technology is ushering in breakthrough cooperation in key materials fields. Japanese innovative materials company TSK Co., Ltd.(TSK) recently officially announced that it has reached a strategic cooperation with Samsung Display, and the two sides will focus on the joint development of next-generation blue oled display materials. The core innovation of this cooperation is the introduction of TSK's unique iron catalyst technology to replace the traditional rare metal palladium with iron element widely found in nature. It is not only expected to overcome the performance bottleneck of blue OLED materials, but also solve the long-term resource dependence and environmental protection faced by the industry. Problems open up a new green and efficient development path for the display industry.​

Industry stubborn disease: dual constraints of blue light materials and catalysts

In the OLED display technology system, red and green materials have already achieved high-efficiency phosphorescent applications, while blue OLED materials have always been a core shortcoming that restricts the development of the industry. Currently, blue subpixels of commercial OLED screens still generally use fluorescent materials. Their luminous efficiency is only about one-quarter of that of red and green phosphorescent materials, and their service life is significantly behind. This not only leads to high overall power consumption of the screen, but also becomes a key factor limiting the improvement of panel life. As the transformation of IT products (such as notebooks and tablets) to OLED screens accelerates, the market demand for low-power, long-life blu-ray materials becomes increasingly urgent, and technological breakthroughs are imminent.​

At the same time, the palladium catalyst relied on in the synthesis process of traditional OLED materials has also brought multiple industry pain points. As a rare and precious metal, palladium is mainly produced in Russia and South Africa. It is not only costly to purchase, but also susceptible to geopolitical fluctuations, resulting in insufficient stability of the supply chain; in addition, the refining process of palladium will produce a large amount of pollutants, which is in line with global manufacturing. The trend of green transformation is contrary to the trend. Under dual constraints, finding alternatives with better performance, lower cost and environmentally friendly has become the only way for high-quality development of the OLED industry.​

Technological innovation: Iron catalysts achieve triple breakthroughs

In response to industry pain points, TSK proposed an innovative solution to replace palladium with iron, and built an environmentally friendly material synthesis system based on unique chemical processes. Compared with traditional palladium catalysts, this technology has achieved three core breakthroughs: First, iron is abundant in nature and is cheap to obtain, which reduces the cost pressure of material synthesis from the root cause and avoids the uncertainty of the rare metal supply chain; Secondly, the iron catalyst process greatly simplifies the reaction steps, reduces energy consumption and waste emissions during the production process, and perfectly conforms to the green manufacturing concept; More critically, this technology can synthesize new molecular structures that are difficult to achieve with traditional palladium catalysts, providing new possibilities for upgrading the performance of blue OLED materials.​

At present, TSK has successfully synthesized an original compound through this technology. After preliminary evaluation, its performance has surpassed existing similar products and is expected to become the core structural component of organic electroluminescent (EL) materials, demonstrating strong commercial application potential. This technical path is highly consistent with Samsung Display's strategic layout. In recent years, the latter has continued to work on the next generation of blue OLED technology, actively exploring technical routes such as phosphorescence (PHOLED) and thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF), and is committed to turning blue material efficiency has been raised to the theoretical limit, and the cooperation between the two parties has formed a strong synergy of technical complementarity and strategic synergy.​

Implementation of cooperation: industry-university-research collaboration, results are beginning to show

The joint development of TSK and Samsung Display will focus on the research and development of compounds based on iron catalysts. Through continuous optimization of experimental plans, we will screen the material formula that is most suitable for blue OLED applications, and ultimately achieve the dual goals of high efficiency and long life of blue OLED. It is noteworthy that the cooperation between the two parties has achieved initial results: relevant research papers jointly written by professors from TSK, Samsung Display and well-known universities in South Korea have been published in the internationally renowned academic journal Communications Materials, marking that this technology route has been recognized by the global academic community, laying a solid foundation for subsequent commercialization.​

From the perspective of corporate background, this cooperation is an accurate match of technical expertise + industrial resources. As an innovative start-up that is deeply involved in basic materials science, TSK's core advantage lies in its unique iron catalyst chemical synthesis process and has always been committed to solving sustainable development issues in industrial production through chemical means; while Samsung Display, as a leader in the global display industry, has strong technological transformation capabilities and market resources, and can accelerate the industrial application of innovative materials. The collaborative cooperation between the two parties will promote the rapid transfer of technological achievements from laboratories to market and shorten the industrialization cycle.​

Industrial impact: Opening up new green and efficient tracks

The significance of this cooperation goes far beyond a single technological breakthrough and will have a profound impact on the global OLED industry. At the technical level, the combination of iron catalyst technology and blu-ray OLED materials is expected to fill the industry's performance shortcomings, promote the comprehensive upgrade of OLED displays in core indicators such as image quality, power consumption, and life, and further consolidate the competitiveness of OLED in the high-end display market.; At the industrial level, this technology will restructure the OLED material production system, reduce the industry's dependence on rare metals, improve the stability and risk resistance of the supply chain, and at the same time promote the transformation of the display industry to green and low-carbon, in line with the" dual carbon" goal. Industrial development trend.​

Looking to the future, with the deepening of cooperation between the two parties, the next-generation blue OLED materials based on iron catalysts are expected to accelerate the commercialization. For Samsung Display, this technology will strengthen its technical barriers in the field of display panels and provide core support for its layout of multi-scene OLED products such as mobile phones, IT, and TVs; for the entire display industry, this innovation path will inspire More companies to participate in the research and development of green materials, and promote the industry to form a virtuous cycle of technological innovation-environmental protection upgrades-cost optimization. While Huike and other companies have achieved breakthroughs in mass production of OLED terminal products, technological innovation in the materials field will further improve the industrial chain ecology and help the global display industry move towards a new stage of higher quality and more sustainable development.​