Are quantum-dot LEDs in your future?

Quantum-dot light emitting diode (QLED) displays could eventually be the technology of choice for such applications as computer screens and TVs now usually handled by LCDs. So predicts QD Vision, a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Massachusetts company recently hooked up with LG Display in Korea and chemical supplier Solvay in Belgium to develop and manufacture active matrix QLED displays.

A QD Vision display prototype.

The interesting thing about QLED technology is that it can potentially employ roll-to-roll fabrication techniques commonly used with polymers. These fabrication methods can be relatively inexpensive. The LEDs take the form of nano-scale semiconducting crystals that electroluminesce when powered up. They also produce colors so pure that they generally need no filtering.

QD Vision says recent advances in materials and device structures have led to QLEDs that can operate from super-low voltages, turning on at the bandgap voltage of the material. This plus exceptional color purity gives QLEDs the potential to be more than twice as power efficient as OLEDs at the same color purity, QD Vision says.

QD Vision is developing quantum dot printing techniques to realize inexpensive, full-color active-matrix displays and lighting devices. Company officials say the ability to print QD emitters using a simple QLED device structure, without the need for color filters or a backlight, greatly simplifies the bill of materials for a QLED display. Because there is no glass or additional optics needed in the resulting solid-state lighting devices, QD Vision predicts the ability to print large-area QLEDs on ultra-thin flexible substrates will reduce luminaire manufacturing cost.

QLEDs are also only a couple hundred nanometers thick. This makes them virtually transparent and flexible, and highly suitable for integration onto plastic or metal foil substrates as well as other surfaces. The implications for display technology is obvious.

More info at the QD Vision site: http://www.qdvision.com/qled-technology