The National Energy Technology Laboratory, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is pleased to announce the following selections for solid-state lighting (SSL) funding opportunities under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Seventeen projects were chosen in response to Core Technology (Round 6), Product Development (Round 6), and U.S. Manufacturing (Round 1) Funding Opportunity Announcements. These selections are anticipated to significantly contribute to the goal of the SSL program:

By 2025, develop advanced solid-state lighting technologies that, compared to conventional lighting technologies, are much more energy efficient, longer lasting, and cost competitive by targeting a product system efficiency of 50 percent with lighting that accurately reproduces sunlight spectrum.

Three selections have been made in response to Core Technology Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0000082. These selections are expected to fill key technology gaps, provide enabling knowledge or data, and represent a significant advancement in the SSL technology base. The total value of selections for Core Technology Research is $4.0 million; the performers of cooperative agreements will provide an average of 23 percent as cost-share.

Six selections have been made in response to Product Development FOA DE-FOA-0000055. These selections are focused on the development or improvement of commercially viable materials, devices, or systems. Technical activities are focused on a targeted market application with fully defined price, efficacy, and other performance parameters necessary for success of the proposed product. The total value of Product Development selections is $10.3 million; the performers will provide an average of 23 percent as cost-share.

Eight selections have been made in response to U.S. Manufacturing FOA DE-FOA-0000057. These selections are focused on achieving significant cost reductions and enhancing quality through improvements in manufacturing equipment, processes, or monitoring techniques. Projects address the technical challenges that must be overcome before prices fall to a level where solid-state lighting will be competitive with existing lighting on a first-cost basis. The total value of manufacturing selections is $23.5 million; the performers will provide an average of 51 percent as cost-share.

A major DOE objective in funding these projects is to develop, establish, and/or maintain the solid-state lighting technology and manufacturing base within the U.S., which will create jobs and promote our nation's role as a leader in the field.

The nine selections that fall under core technology and product development are covered under the Exceptional Circumstances Determination issued by DOE in June 2004. All of the selections are listed below (subject to negotiation).

Core Technology Research Selections

Recipient: Cambrios
Title: Solution-Processable Transparent Conductive Hole Injection Electrode for Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) SSL
Team Members: Plextronics Inc.
Summary: This project seeks to develop a replacement for the combination of a sputtered ITO electrode and hole injection layer. Solution-processable transparent conductors offer the potential to significantly reduce the cost of manufacture of the anode layer for OLED lighting devices.

Recipient: University of Rochester
Title: Development and Utilization of Host Materials for White Phosphorescent OLEDs
Summary: This project seeks to produce white OLEDs with >100 lm/W efficiency after light extraction enhancement and >10,000 hour operating time, by making a new class of emissive materials.

Recipient: WhiteOptics LLC
Title: Low-Cost, Highly Lambertian Reflector Composite for Improved LED Fixture Efficiency and Lifetime
Team Members: University of Delaware, The Crowell Corporation
Summary: This project seeks to demonstrate a highly reflective, highly diffuse, low-cost composite material that is able to withstand at least 50,000 hours of luminaire operation.

Product Development Selections

Recipient: Cree Inc.
Title: Ultra-Compact High-Efficiency Luminaire for General Illumination
Summary: This project seeks to create an ultra-compact 80-lm/W SSL luminaire that emits at a color temperature of 3000 K with a Color Rendering Index (CRI) of 90. The project will involve synergetic LED component, optic, thermal management, and driver developments to enable the specified luminaire performance. This integrated approach will establish a technology platform capable of providing high-efficiency LED components that can be adopted across a variety of SSL applications.

Recipient: General Electric
Title: Optimized Phosphors for Warm-White LED Light Engines
Team Members: University of Georgia (UGA)
Summary: GE Global Research, in collaboration with GE Lumination and the University of Georgia, seeks to develop optimized phosphor systems and packaging for LED down-conversion. This program will build upon the materials and understanding developed in prior DOE programs between GE and UGA that have led to new phosphors and light engine prototypes with ~70 lm/W steady-state efficacy at Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) ~3100 K and CRI ~90.

Recipient: Lightscape Materials Inc.
Title: Nitride- and Oxynitride-Based Phosphors for SSL
Summary: This project seeks to develop a set of high-efficiency, novel nitride- and oxynitride-based phosphor products. The performance goals for the phosphors are: quantum yield >90%, thermal quenching <10% at 150C, measured good environmental stability, <10% scattering loss, and cost-effective preparation.

Recipient: Osram Sylvania Products Inc.
Title: High-Flux Commercial Illumination Solution with Intelligent Controls
Summary: This project seeks to create a replacement solution for fluorescent luminaires that consists of intelligent control electronics, three linear LED modules using remote phosphor technology, and a power supply, all enclosed in a metal housing. The intelligent controls will sense occupancy and ambient lighting conditions and then, to gain additional energy savings, will use switching and dimming that's not possible without degrading fluorescent lamp performance.

Recipient: Philips Lumileds Lighting Company, LLC
Title: 130 Lm/W, 1000 Lm Warm-White LED for Illumination
Summary: This project seeks to develop an illumination-grade warm-white LED having a CCT range between 2700 K and 3500 K, 1000 lm output, and an efficacy of 130 lm/W. The CRI for this LED will be over 80. The LED will contain a 2x2 mm² InGaN die and a warm-white phosphor Lumiramic^® plate in a solder-free lead frame package.

Recipient: PPG Industries
Title: Low-Cost Integrated Substrate for OLED Lighting
Team Members: Universal Display Corporation
Summary: PPG Industries Inc., Glass R&D plans to develop a new low-cost integrated substrate product that is suitable for OLED lighting manufacture and is compatible with PPG's existing flat-glass and transparent-glass coating technologies and high-volume glass manufacturing methods. Through focused, short-term applied research on new electrode and light extraction coatings, PPG plans to develop the OLED lighting integrated substrate using low-cost soda lime float glass plus transparent anode materials and light extraction layers.

U.S. Manufacturing Selections

Recipient: Applied Materials Inc.
Title: Advanced Epi Tools for Gallium Nitride LED Devices
Summary: This project seeks to develop a multichamber Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) and Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy (HVPE) system, which is an advanced epitaxial growth system for LED manufacturers that has the potential to decrease operating costs, increase efficiency of LEDs, and improve binning yields. The approach builds upon the successful Centura platform which is used for growing low-cost, high-quality epitaxial wafers in the integrated circuit industry.

Recipient: GE Global Research
Title: Roll-to-Roll Solution-Processable Small-Molecule OLEDs
Team Members: Dupont Displays Inc.
Summary: This project seeks to integrate the following with GE's prepilot roll-to-roll (R2R) manufacturing infrastructure: high-performance phosphorescent small-molecule OLED materials, advanced OLED device architectures, plastic ultra-high barrier films, and an advanced encapsulation scheme. The project proposes to eliminate the differences in OLED performance between idealized laboratory-scale batch process and prepilot production, and to demonstrate, by 2012, R2R-manufactured OLEDs that have the same luminous efficacy as their laboratory-scale counterparts.

Recipient: GE Lumination
Title: Development of Advanced Manufacturing Methods for Warm-White LEDs for General Lighting
Summary: This project seeks to develop precise and efficient manufacturing techniques for GE Lumination's "remote phosphor" platform of warm-white LED products named Vio™. The approach drives significant materials, labor, and capital productivity to achieve approximately 53% reduction in overall cost, while minimizing color variation in the Vio platform.

Recipient: KLA-Tencor Corporation
Title: Automated Yield Management and Defect Source Analysis Inspection Tooling and Software for LED Manufacturing
Team Members: Philips Lumileds
Summary: This project seeks to improve the product yield for high-brightness LEDs by developing an automated optical defect detection and classification system that identifies and distinguishes harmful defects from benign defects. The proposed approach allows for traceability in defect origin and includes the hardware and correlated software package development.

Recipient: Philips Lumileds Lighting Company, LLC
Title: Low-Cost Illumination-Grade LEDs
Summary: This project seeks to realize a 30% yield improvement and 60% reduction in epitaxy manufacturing costs for high-power LEDs through the implementation of GaN-on-Si epitaxial processes on 150 mm substrates. The use of silicon replaces the industry-standard sapphire substrates. The process will be developed using Philips Lumileds' proven thin film flip chip capabilities on the company's LUXEON^® Rebel lamp.

Recipient: Ultratech Inc.
Title: A Low-Cost Lithography Tool for High-Brightness LED Manufacturing
Team Members: SemiLEDs
Summary: This project seeks to develop a lithographic manufacturing tool having the benefits of higher throughput, greater yields, lower initial capital cost, and lower cost of ownership. A projection stepper process will be modified and optimized for LED manufacturing. The proposed system will be able to accommodate a variety of wafer sizes and thicknesses and handle the wafer warpage typically associated with larger-diameter substrates.

Recipient: Universal Display Corporation (UDC)
Title: Creation of a U.S. Phosphorescent OLED Lighting Panel Manufacturing Facility
Team Members: Moser Baer Technologies
Summary: This project seeks to design and set up two pilot phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED) manufacturing lines. The team will implement UDC's PHOLED technology and provide prototype lighting panels to U.S. luminaire manufacturers to incorporate into products, to facilitate testing of design, and to gauge customer acceptance.

Recipient: Veeco Instruments
Title: Implementation of Process-Simulation Tools and Temperature-Control Methods for High-Yield MOCVD Growth
Team Members: Sandia National Laboratories and Philips Lumileds
Summary: This project seeks to develop a complementary set of high-resolution short-wavelength and infrared in-situ monitoring tools for accurate substrate temperature measurement and growth rate monitoring. Philips Lumileds will test the resulting tool in the processing of LEDs. The approach is anticipated to result in a 100% improvement in wavelength yield and a 75% cost reduction for LED epitaxy.