Organic light-emitting diodes have long been seen as a candidate for architectural and indoor lighting, but their commercial use has been constrained by limited lifetime at high brightness. A research team led by Max Shtein, professor of materials science and engineering and chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, now reports a structural solution that addresses this challenge by rethinking how OLED lighting panels are built rather than what they are made of.
Wang, B., Kotadiya, N. B., Kim, T., Mashack, R., Comfort, D., Huang, C., Arneson, C. E., Kondakova, M., Giebink, N. C., & Shtein, M. (2025). High aspect ratio organic light-emitting diodes. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-67312-4
The work, carried out in collaboration with OLEDWorks and The Pennsylvania State University, focuses on introducing a corrugated surface beneath the OLED layers. Instead of depositing the organic materials on a flat glass substrate, the researchers formed microscopic ridges in a thin epoxy layer on glass. These ridges are only about one tenth of a millimeter tall and are not visible to the naked eye, but they significantly increase the surface area available for light emission within the same panel footprint.
Max Shtein, professor of materials science and engineering and chemical engineering at the University of Michigan stated,
“High aspect ratio OLEDs represent a practical and elegant solution to a longstanding challenge in solid-state lighting. Together with our research partners, we are accelerating the development of durable, energy-efficient OLED solutions for the market”.
This change in geometry has a direct effect on how the device operates. Because more emitting area is packed into a given panel, the same overall light output can be achieved while each section of the OLED runs at a lower current density. Lower current density reduces electrical and thermal stress on the organic materials, which are known to degrade more quickly under high operating loads. In testing, OLEDs built on the corrugated panels lasted approximately 2.7 times longer than comparable flat devices operated under the same electrical conditions.
The fabrication process remained compatible with established OLED manufacturing techniques. After the University of Michigan team prepared the textured glass substrates, OLEDWorks completed the device assembly by depositing the organic layers between a transparent indium tin oxide electrode and a reflective metal electrode. Despite long-standing assumptions that OLEDs require extremely smooth, pristine surfaces, the devices performed reliably even with the added three-dimensional structure.
Efficiency gains accompanied the improved lifetime. Optical measurements and ray-tracing simulations showed that the corrugated design increased external light extraction efficiency by roughly 40 percent. Since the internal OLED layer stack was identical to that of flat devices, the improvement was attributed to the way the textured geometry helps light escape the device instead of being trapped and lost within the panel. This effect is particularly relevant for lighting applications, where efficiency losses directly translate to higher power consumption.
The researchers evaluated both green and blue OLEDs, with particular attention given to blue devices because they typically degrade the fastest and are a limiting factor in white light generation. The lifetime improvements observed in blue OLEDs suggest that the corrugated approach could meaningfully extend the usable life of full-spectrum lighting panels when combined with red and green emitters.
From an engineering standpoint, the study highlights the role of device architecture alongside materials development. Much of the recent progress in OLED technology has focused on improving organic emitters and host materials, especially for blue light. This work shows that geometric design at the microscale can deliver substantial gains without changing the underlying chemistry, making it potentially complementary to ongoing materials research.
The next step for the team is to apply the corrugated design to white OLED lighting by stacking multiple emissive layers. If successful, the approach could help close the performance gap between OLEDs and inorganic LEDs for general illumination, while preserving the form-factor advantages of OLEDs such as thinness, flexibility, and the ability to create curved or conformal light sources.
Rather than a radical departure from existing OLED technology, the corrugated panel concept represents an incremental but practical adjustment to device structure. For engineers working in solid-state lighting, it offers a reminder that performance limits are often set not only by materials, but also by how those materials are arranged in three dimensions.
Adrian graduated with a Masters Degree (1st Class Honours) in Chemical Engineering from Chester University along with Harris. His master’s research aimed to develop a standardadised clean water oxygenation transfer procedure to test bubble diffusers that are currently used in the wastewater industry commercial market. He has also undergone placments in both US and China primarely focused within the R&D department and is an associate member of the Institute of Chemical Engineers (IChemE).
