Zhikuan Chen
(
Chairman of Ningbo Lumilan Advanced Material Co., Ltd.)
Owing to its advantages of self-emission, high contrast, fast response, wide color gamut, superior color rendition, large viewing angle, flexibility and bendability, low power consumption, and simple structure, OLED has become the third-generation mainstream display technology and is now widely used across smartphones, televisions, automotive displays, wearable electronics, and IT applications. This talk will introduce the fundamental principles of OLED display technology, its technological evolution, the current state of China's OLED display industry, and China's innovative developments in OLED display imaging technology. The talk will also present Ningbo Lumilan New Materials Co., Ltd., a leading domestic enterprise in OLED emitting materials, and the interim achievements it has made, guided by the strategic need for the localization of OLED emitting materials, in developing red-emitting material systems and materials for other functional layers.
After completing his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral studies at Peking University, Dr. Chen Zhikuan joined the Department of Chemistry at the National University of Singapore (NUS) as a postdoctoral fellow in 1995. In 1998, he joined the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) in Singapore to conduct research on organic electronics as Senior Research Fellow and Department Head. During the same period, he also served as an Adjunct Professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Department of Chemistry of NUS, as well as Chief Technology Consultant for several companies in Singapore. Upon his return to China in 2013, Professor Chen was appointed Distinguished Professor of Jiangsu Province at Nanjing Tech University and served as Dean of the Institute of Emerging Industry Development. In 2019, he joined the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) as a Chair Professor with main research focus on organic optoelectronic materials and devices. He has published over 160 SCI-indexed papers, filed more than 300 domestic and international patents, and obtained authorization for over 100 of them. In 2021, Dr. Chen was awarded the title of Leader of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Team of Zhejiang Province; in 2022, he won the Top 10 Entrepreneurs of Ningbo City; and in 2024, he was accredited as a National-Level Leading Talent. Currently, Dr. Chen serves as a Member of the Technical Committee of the SID Beijing Student Chapter, Director of the Zhejiang Engineering Research Center for OLED Materials and Devices, Executive Deputy Director of the Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics of Zhejiang Province, and Chairman of Ningbo Flexible Electronics Society. He founded Ningbo Lumilan Advanced Materials Co., Ltd. in 2017 and serves as its Chairman. The company focuses on the R&D and production of OLED materials, with its core product technology, i.e., red-light host materials, taking the leading position across the globe, which has been adopted in mass production by major domestic display panel enterprises. The company was awarded the titles of "National Specialized, Refined, Differentiated, and Innovative Little Giant Enterprise" in 2022 and "National Key Specialized, Refined, Differentiated, and Innovative Little Giant Enterprise" in 2025 respectively.