Organic EL i.e. Organic Electroluminescence is the phenomenon that organic materials emit light in response to applied electric field. Since it can form a surface emitting illuminator and produce various emission colors, the Organic EL has been developed toward practical use as a flat-panel display. The advantages of bright self-luminous device and of creating vivid contrast images, the Organic EL would be the favorite to the front-runner of the next-generation display, and has promoted the rapid development to commercialize it in audio-visual equipments including television set.

In addition to this, in recent years, the Organic EL has attracted more attention as the next-generation lighting fixture that makes full use of advantages of the thin film surface emitting device.

	The film thickness of its emitting layer is less 0.1 micrometers.
	Easy to fabricate the large area of surface emitting device, using vacuum evaporation technology for the organic materials.
	The luminous efficiency is as high as an incandescent bulb at present,and more than twice as high as a fluorescent bulb in its theoretical limitation.
	Flexible substrate on which organic materials could possibly be evaporated makes the flexible organic EL.
	Combination of organic materials achieves a variety of emission colors.
	The driving voltage is 3 - 4 volts. The low consumption contributes to save energy when the organic EL is put to practical use more often.