We're happy to announce a new market report, Graphene for the Display and Lighting industries. This report, brought to you by the world's leading Graphene and OLED experts, is a comprehensive guide to the applications of graphene in these two important markets. Graphene is an exciting material that promises to revolutionize entire industries - and it has a bright future in the display and lighting industries.

Reading this report, you'll learn all about:

• Graphene applications in LED and OLED lighting
• Graphene's adoption as a backplane for AMOLEDs
• Transparent graphene electrodes
• Graphene-based encapsulation development

Other topics include:

• Graphene companies involved with display and lighting
• An introduction to graphene
• An introduction to lighting and displays
• Details about graphene for QDs, lasers and thermal foils

BGT Materials, the UK-based graphene technology company, has announced that it has received the first commercial order for its subsidiary, Graphene Security. GS, developer of flexible and green wireless antenna solutions, has chosen its first application to be in the RFID industry where graphene is used as the antenna inlays. This technology was recently demonstrated in the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

BGT Materials has also a second subsidiary, Graphene Lighting, that designs and manufactures next-generation LED lighting, using graphene as a thermal dissipation solution. It has developed the Graphene Light Bulbs, and a full product rollout is underway which includes a full range of home, commercial and street lighting.

The Centre of Process Innovation (CPI) has announced that it will be part of a UK-based collaboration to develop the next generation of graphene-based ultra-barrier materials for flexible transparent plastic electronic based displays. The materials on which this work focuses on are required for the next generation of smartphones, tablets and wearable electronics and the twelve month project titled ‘Gravia’ will investigate the feasibility of producing graphene-based barrier films for next generation flexible OLED lighting and display products. 

The project combines the skills from each of the partners (University of Cambridge, FlexEnable Ltd, the National Physical Laboratory and the Centre for Process Innovation) and expects to deliver a feasible material and process system. It builds upon significant existing investments by InnovateUK and the EPSRC in this area. The resulting ultra-barrier material can be potentially used in a wide range of novel applications by the lead business partner, FlexEnable.

A collaborative Innovate UK project called Project Graphted that began on 1st April 2015 aims at evaluating Graphene’s potential as a transparent electrode when dispersed in a polymeric matrix. Graphted will be led by PolyPhotonix, a UK-based company that develops applications based on OLED lighting panels, and will include a 12 month feasibility study in which PolyPhotonix will be working in collaboration with Applied Graphene Materials and CPI (a UK-based R&D institute that helps companies develop and scale manufacturing processes).

The project seeks to provide proof of concept evidence that a Graphene-based electronic device can be successfully developed and fully categorised in terms of morphology and physical properties. If so, the approach holds potential to generate a range of electronic inks that can be utilised on a large scale. Application areas include OLEDs and organic photovoltaics (OPV).

Researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing demonstrated a graphene-based LED that not only can be tuned to emit different colors of light, but can do so across nearly the entire visible spectrum: from blue (450-nm wavelength) to red (750-nm wavelength)—basically all colors but the darkest blues and violets. Such a color tunable LED has never before been realized.

The scientists made the light-emitting material from the interface of two different forms of graphene. These forms are graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO). Placed at the interface of the GO and rGO is a special type of partially reduced GO that has optical, physical, and chemical properties that lie somewhere in between those of GO and rGO. The most important "blended" property of the interfacial layer is that it has a series of discrete energy levels, which ultimately allows for the emission of light at many different energies, or colors.

Graphene Lighting PLC has signed a letter of intent to engage in a reverse takeover with Canadian capital pool company Oriana Resources Corp. Gaining a stock exchange listing in Canada is in line with Graphene Lighting’s intention to become a global supplier of graphene-enabled light bulbs and lighting systems. 

Oriana and Graphene Lighting will complete the reverse takeover by way of a share exchange arrangement that will make Graphene Lighting a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oriana. The completion of the deal is subject to a number of conditions, like the closing of a $5 million brokered private placement of subscription receipts by Graphene Lighting, and using the proceeds to execute Graphene Lighting’s product development, sales and marketing strategy.

Researchers from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have fabricated light-emitting diodes (LEDs) based on graphene quantum dots (GQDs). The researchers made pure GQDs using a cost-effective, scalable and environmentally friendly method that allows direct fabrication of GQDs using water, without surfactants or chemical solvents.

Those GQDs were then used as emitter material to create an OLED device.The scientists constructed GQD LEDs exhibiting luminance of 1000 cd/m2, which is well over the typical brightness levels of the portable displays used in smartphones.

A team of scientists from Columbia, Seoul National University (SNU), and Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) reported the creation of an on-chip visible light source using graphene as a filament. Creating light in small structures on the surface of a chip is crucial for developing fully integrated 'photonic' circuits that do with light what is now done with electric currents in semiconductor integrated circuits.

The scientists attached small strips of graphene to metal electrodes, suspended the strips above the substrate, and passed a current through the filaments to cause them to heat up. The team refers to this design as 'the world's thinnest light bulb', a type of 'broadband' light emitter that can be integrated into chips and may pave the way towards the realization of atomically thin, flexible, and transparent displays, and graphene-based on-chip optical communications.

Scientists from the Novosibirsk Nikolayev Inorganic Chemistry Institute and the Krasnoyarsk Biophysics Institute have invented a new composite material made of graphene and nano-diamonds. By placing nano-diamonds on the surface of vertically aligned tubes of graphene (probably carbon nanotubes), the scientists created a unique composite material that glows under the impact of a weak electric field.

The researchers say this is the prototype of a tiny light fixture, a nano-tube with a glowing nano-diamond on top. Such structures can be used in a variety of fields, from new types of displays to health diagnostics techniques.

The National Graphene Institute was recently opened in the UK, in an official ceremony that also included another intriguing event.

Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov demonstrated to the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne the graphene light bulb, which was mentioned to be set to launch later in 2015. While the price is yet unknown, it is rumored to be relatively low-price, cut energy use by 10% and last longer owing to its conductivity.