The US Department of Energy on January 15, 2010 has pledged $37 million of funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act towards research projects in high-efficiency solid-state lighting, which includes light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).

DOE selected 17 projects to receive funding in the areas of research, development, and deployment. The awards have been made in conjunction with $28.5 million in private industry cost share. The funds going to research in energy efficient lighting will serve to reduce our energy consumption and environmental impact, save money and support an industry that will create new jobs.

Funds were awarded to Cambrios in Sunnyvale, California, University of Rochester, and WhiteOptics, LLC in Newark, Delaware for core technology research. Funds for product development will go to Cree General Electric, Lightscape Materials, Osram Sylvania Products, Inc., Philips Lumileds Lighting Company, and PPG Industries. Support for the manufacturing side has been slated for Applied Materials, GE Global Research, GE Lumination, KLA Tencor Corp Philips Lumileds Lighting, Ultratech, Universal Display Corp and Veeco Instruments.

This is the sixth allocation of funds by DOE for solid-state lighting core technology research and product development, and the first time that DOE has funded solid-state lighting manufacturing projects. The inclusion of funding to manufacturing research is part of a new DOE initiative to achieve manufacturing improvements that reduce costs and improve quality.