Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany is a leading science and technology company whose performance materials business operates as EMD Performance Materials in the US and Canada. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany offers the broadest portfolio of high-quality display materials and solutions for display manufacturers. Their portfolio enables the displays of today and drives the future of the industry with their high-performance liquid crystals, materials for optical films, organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) for flexible displays, Quantum Materials, photoresists, reactive mesogens, and a robust LED portfolio to enhance backlighting for displays. OLED materials from Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany continue to gain importance within the display industry by enabling brilliant colors, sharper images from any viewing angle, high contrasts and perfect black states for high-end televisions and smartphones. In addition, their thin, flexible and very energy-efficient properties are enabling unique display applications. As a diffuse light source, these OLED materials are also revolutionizing the design of automotive lighting. In the future, OLED technology could transform ceilings or walls in buildings into information panels. To enable such future applications, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany is developing highly efficient OLED materials under the Livilux® brand name for vacuum evaporation methods or printing processes. Further investments in OLED from Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany include successfully doubling their application lab capacity in Korea in 2017. This is to be followed by their first OLED Applications Lab in China which opened in 2018.

In 1994, our founder and visionary, Sherwin Seligsohn visited the electrical engineering school at Princeton University and he observed research by Drs. Forrest and Thompson in self-emissive organic materials. He saw a green dot, with a 9-volt battery hanging from it, light up for seconds before it expired. From that green dot, Sherwin saw the future of display technology, and so began Universal Display’s story.

We were founded with a vision of creating the next generation of displays, back when TVs were still CRTs (cathode ray tubes). That technology was energy-efficient organic light emitting diodes, or OLEDs. In 1996, Universal Display became a publicly traded company with a research contract with Princeton University, 3 part-time employees and one patent pending.

Fast forward almost two decades and we have grown from an R&D start-up to a global leader in the OLED industry. Today, we work with the largest consumer display panel manufacturers in the world. Our proprietary technologies and materials can be found in virtually every commercial OLED product in the world, from smartwatches and tablets, to smartphones and TVs, including Samsung’s Galaxy series and LG’s OLED TVs. Our leading-edge phosphorescent technology is also key in OLED lighting. With over 15% of the world’s total electricity and 5% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions stemming from lighting, more energy-efficient lighting products are in high demand. Based on our proprietary UniversalPHOLED® technology and materials, OLEDs have the potential to offer power efficiencies that are superior to those for today’s incandescent bulbs and fluorescent tubes. The OLED industry is just beginning to take off, and we are excited to continue to have a critical role in this new era of display and lighting technologies.

Universal Display’s Mission

Our mission is to be a key enabler in the OLED ecosystem and help grow the OLED industry with our broad and deep experience and know-how, proprietary OLED technologies and UniversalPHOLED (phosphorescent OLED) emissive materials’ systems.