The world's first serial OLED tail lamp as a milestone for developing a brilliant future of automotive lamps

摘要

The automotive world has been enthralled since a few years about new design possibilities of organic LEDs (OLEDs) in automotive lamps. During that time there were big technological challenges to overcome in terms of limited lifetime and insufficient encapsulation of organic molecules. Moreover, applying the thin and fragile elements into automotive lamps confronted the engineers with a variety of challenges - including e. g. solutions for robust electrical contacting and adequate thermal management. In March 2016 a new milestone for OLED as novel automotive light source was set: Tail lamps with OLED technology became series equipment for the high performance model BMW M4 GTS, supplied by odelo as partner of BMW Group for advance development and the first-time serial realization of OLED technology. This contribution presents the technical status of automotive OLEDs as well as discusses challenges of this technology that have to be solved for serial tail lamps. Furthermore, future prospects for auto-motive lamps using these thin and homogeneous emitting light sources are discussed in respect to create new lighting design possibilities - both at night and daylight.