PLEXIGLAS^® POQ: High Optical Purity for Optical Lightguides

• Regularly lit displays - no light loss even over long lightguides

• Three product variants for every display format and every desired application

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Darmstadt, Germany - Flat-panel displays are gaining an increasing share of the market. TFT-LCD technology has become state of the art in everything from TV sets to PC monitors, notebooks, cell phone displays and radio and navigation systems in vehicles. For several reasons, notably the excellent image quality and optimum contrast, as well as space-saving design.

This is enabled by the interplay of LCD unit and backlight module. One component of the backlight module is particularly important for excellent brightness and homogenous light distribution - the optical lightguide. The light is fed in via the edge (edgelight system) and has to be evenly distributed across the entire surface, without light loss even in long lightguides. For this, the lightguide must be absolutely pure and show high transparency. PLEXIGLAS^® POQ is the perfect material to meet these requirements.

Ideal for lightguides

The material is a special grade of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) with very good light transmission of more than 92 percent. To ensure its high optical purity and transmission, PLEXIGLAS^® POQ is manufactured and packaged under clean-room conditions. So all the prerequisites are in place for optimum product quality for manufacturing backlight units.

Suitable for every kind of processing technology

Different technologies are used for manufacturing optical lightguides, depending on the display format and field of application. This makes different demands on the processing properties of the molding compound. PLEXIGLAS^® POQ is therefore available in three grades that were specially developed for the individual process.

PLEXIGLAS^® POQ66 is particularly suitable for extrusion due to its balanced combination of melt elasticity and ease of flow, good heat deflection temperature and favorable mechanical properties for post-treatment of extruded sheet. PLEXIGLAS^® POQ64 is employed for injection molding and injection-compression molding, because it offers extreme ease of flow, optimized demolding behavior and accurate mold surface reproduction. PLEXIGLAS^® POQ62 is used for coextrusion and for the two aforementioned processing methods, because it offers extreme ease of flow and highly accurate reproduction of microstructures. That means the high optical purity and transmission of PLEXIGLAS^® POQ can be put to best advantage in all fields of application.

Image:

Uniform brightness: optical lightguides made of PLEXIGLAS® POQ for backlight units in TFT-LCD displays

(A high-res image is available at: www.degussa-photodatabase.com.)

Company information:

The Methacrylates Business Unit of Evonik Industries is a worldwide manufacturer of PMMA products sold under the PLEXIGLAS^® trademark on the European, Asian, African and Australian continents and under the trademark ACRYLITE^® in the Americas.

Evonik Industries is the creative industrial group which operates in three highly profitable, promising business areas: Chemicals, Energy and Real Estate. Evonik is a global leader in specialty chemicals, an expert in power generation from hard coal and renewable energies, and one of the largest private residential real estate companies in Germany. Our strengths are creativity, specialization, continuous self-renewal, and reliability.

Evonik Industries is active in over 100 countries around the world. In fiscal 2006 around 43,000 employees generated sales of €14.8 billion and operating profit (EBIT) of over €1.2 billion. Evonik plans to enter the capital market in the first half of 2008.

Disclaimer

In so far as forecasts or expectations are expressed in this press release and where our forward-looking statements concern the future, these forecasts, expectations and statements may involve known or unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results or developments may vary, depending on changes in the operating environment. Evonik Industries AG assumes no obligation to update the forecasts, expectations or statements contained in this release.