The alumnus of Technische Universität Dresden Dr. Tobias Schwab was awarded with the 3500 € Photonics21 Student Innovation Award for his outstanding PhD thesis on increasing efficiency of white organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) with light outcoupling. The chair of the Award Committee Roberta Ramponi handed over the prize during the Photonics21 Annual Meeting 2015 on the 29th of May in Brussels, Belgium.

Especially during the international year of the light 2015, decreasing the power consumption for artificial lighting is one of the key issues for the sustainable development of mankind. Dr. Tobias Schwab’s outstanding PhD thesis entitled “Top-Emitting OLEDs - Improvement of the light extraction efficiency and optimization of microcavity effects for white emission” yielded several breakthroughs on key problems in OLED technology – one of the cutting-edge lighting technologies of these days. His work brings new impulses to OLED lighting and display industry, as well as yield significant scientific impact in photonics and economics.
The scientific focus of Dr. Schwab tackles a general efficiency limitation in LED technology, based on total internally reflection, trapping the majority (70 - 80%) of the generated light inside these device. Moreover, the investigation of highly transparent, flexible electrodes, completely compatible with organic materials not only allowed for significant improvement of white light-emitting diodes regarding color quality, efficiency, and color uniformity, but also further induced the realization of new device concepts. His exceptional experimental skills and continuous lab work resulted in the first realization of high yield, simple, fast, and fully integrable processing of light extraction patterns in top-emitting OLEDs, which are desired for display applications and for cost-effective roll-to-roll fabrication.
Dr. Schwab says, “I feel very honored that my PhD work has been recognized by the Photonics21 award. I will use the qualifications obtained in my new job in the automotive industry”. Prof. Karl Leo, who supervised the thesis of Dr. Schwab, adds, “The award recognizes our work on highly efficient organic devices. It is our key goal that European industry plays an important role in this technology in the future”.

Information for journalists:
Annette Polte, PhD
Institute for Applied Photophysics
Technische Universität Dresden
Tel.: 0351 463-37500

http://www.iapp.de