Researchers at the University of Michigan, led by Max Shtein, professor of materials science and engineering and chemical engineering, have demonstrated a new OLED lighting design that significantly improves both operational lifetime and efficiency. Working with industry partner OLEDWorks and collaborators at Pennsylvania State University, the team showed that shaping OLEDs onto a corrugated surface allows the devices to operate at lower internal brightness while maintaining the same overall light output.
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, 17(1), 703. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-67312-4
OLEDs are widely used in smartphone and television displays, but their adoption for general room lighting has been limited. At the brightness levels required to illuminate indoor spaces, OLED materials degrade more quickly than conventional inorganic LEDs. This tradeoff between brightness and lifespan has remained a central obstacle for OLED-based lighting systems.
Max Shtein from 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.”
The new approach addresses this limitation by increasing the active emitting area within a fixed panel footprint. Instead of fabricating OLED layers on a flat surface, the researchers formed microscopic corrugations in a thin epoxy layer applied to glass. These ridges are only around a tenth of a millimeter tall and are not visible to the naked eye, yet they substantially increase the surface area available for light emission.
Once the corrugated substrates were fabricated at the University of Michigan, they were transferred to OLEDWorks for device assembly. There, standard OLED layers were deposited between a transparent indium tin oxide electrode and a reflective metal electrode. Because the OLED materials conform to the angled surfaces of the corrugations, the resulting devices have a higher aspect ratio, effectively packing more emitting material into the same panel area.
This structural change allows each section of the OLED to operate at a lower current density to achieve the same overall brightness. Lower current density is directly linked to slower material degradation, which translates into longer device lifetime. In testing, blue OLEDs fabricated on corrugated panels lasted approximately 2.7 times longer than comparable flat-panel devices operated at the same current.
Blue OLEDs were a particular focus because they typically degrade faster than red or green emitters and often limit the usable lifetime of OLED lighting systems. The observed improvement suggests that the corrugated design could meaningfully extend the service life of full-color or white OLED lighting panels.
In addition to longer lifetime, the corrugated devices showed improved efficiency. Optical modeling and ray-tracing simulations indicated that the textured geometry helps light escape the device more effectively, reducing losses from internal reflections. Measurements showed an increase of about 40 percent in external light extraction efficiency compared with flat OLED panels built using the same internal layer structure.
Importantly, the approach does not rely on new OLED materials or complex nanofabrication techniques. The internal organic layers remain unchanged, and the corrugations can tolerate small surface imperfections that would typically be avoided in OLED manufacturing. This tolerance could simplify production and reduce costs if the design is scaled for commercial use.
The researchers tested the concept using blue and green OLEDs, but they note that the same architecture could be applied to white lighting by stacking red, green, and blue emitting layers. Such configurations are commonly used in OLED lighting and displays, suggesting a clear path toward practical lighting panels.
By moving OLED design from a strictly two-dimensional format to a three-dimensional geometry, the study highlights how structural engineering can complement materials development. Rather than pushing OLED materials harder to achieve higher brightness, the corrugated panel strategy redistributes the workload across more emitting area, improving both efficiency and durability.
As demand grows for flexible, thin, and design-friendly lighting solutions, advances like this may help OLEDs find a larger role alongside conventional LEDs. The work demonstrates that addressing long-standing performance limits does not always require new chemistry, but can emerge from rethinking how existing materials are structured and used.
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).
