Title: Development of Next-Generation Display Technology – Retrospection and Outlook
Abstract:
LCD and OLED are the two dominant display technologies today with applications ranging from handheld smartphones and laptops to wall-sized TVs. Developed in the 1960-70s and based on light-valve technology, the flat-panel LCD not only fulfilled the need to replace the then standard but bulky CRT, but also emerged as the display technology of choice because of its superb energy efficiency. However, LCD has suffered from serious deficits in display quality, such as poor contrast and slow response, mainly due to its imperfect light-valve properties. Discovered in the late 1970s and based on thin organic films, OLED was immediately recognized to be ideally suited for display applications with characteristics superior to LCD, thus its replacement. Plagued by a short lifetime in early OLED devices, however, commercial OLED displays only appeared in the 2000s, and mass production of OLED displays for smartphones and TVs took another decade. Today, OLED displays account for about 30% of the $150 billion display market. In this talk, I will give an overview of OLED display technology, tracing its pathway from discovery to commercialization, and discuss its outlook relative to LCD and other emerging display technologies.
