There are a number of companies in the printed electronics field that are earning prestigious honors for their new technologies. One such company is cynora GmbH, a specialist in organic functional materials for OLEDs and OPVs, which received the Falling Walls Science Start-up of the Year 2013 late last year.

Falling Walls was founded on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, as an international platform for leaders in the fields of science, business, politics, the arts and society. The Falling Walls Venture is an international forum for leading science-based start-up companies, venture capitalists and strategic investors as well as the wider academic environment.

For the Falling Walls Science Start-up of the Year award, 10 academic institutions and 10 venture capitalists presented their science-based enterprises to a jury, which selects the recipient of the award. cynora was this year’s recipient, based on its development of organic copper-based semiconductors for OLEDs. Copper is priced favorably and is readily available; these semiconductors could replace iridium, a rare and expensive element, for mass manufacturing OLED displays and lighting.

“It is a great honor for cynora that our vision and efforts in R&D of the next generation of OLED technology has been recognized by such an experienced jury,” said cynora CEO Dr. Tobias Grab “To be honest, we did not expect to win this prize, because of the excellent competition from all over the world.”

cynora was founded in 2003, but the company’s focus on organic functional materials for OLEDs and OPVs really started in April 2008, when Dr. Thomas Baumann and Dr. Tobias Grab, a pair of graduated chemists, took over cynora’s general management, serving as co-CEOs. cynora is headquartered in the new high-tech incubator at the northern campus of the Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe (KIT), one of the universities with whom cynora has developed strong ties.

cynora is no stranger to awards: in July 2012, cynora received the SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) leading-edge cluster competition, Forum Organic Electronics, conducted by InnovationLab GmbH. cynora and KIT were honored for the cyFlex project, which focuses on the development and production of flexible, printed OLEDs based on new emitter materials.

cyFLEX’s goal is to develop viable OLED materials for mass-market applications that can be integrated into luminescent packaging for smart packaging and advertising applications. Working closely together with the Forum Organic Electronics cluster, the plan is to complete a small volume production run of printed flexible OLED film at InnovationLab GmbH (iL).

cynora’s materials can be used to print light onto thin foils, labels or as part of smart packaging, and is investigating processing techniques from solution like inkjet printing and knife-coating. The company has been making major advances in its technology, and cynora is earning attention from OLED manufacturers.

“After having installed our new device prototyping equipment at our new facilities in June 2013, we have advanced in optimizing our materials,” said Dr. Mathias Mydlak, cynora’s business development manager. “During the last four months, we have been able to raise device efficiencies by 50% and the brightness by a factor of four. But of course, the main step forward in 2013 has been raising the interest of the major players in the OLED display, lighting and materials industries.”

Dr. Mydlak sees opportunities ahead for cynora.

“In the coming year, cynora intends to further advance its efforts in optimizing materials and device production, both internally as well as in close collaboration with selected partners from the relevant industries,” Dr. Mydlak said. “Since cynora wants to strongly focus on the customers’ needs, we are open to new ideas and options.”