DISPLAY WEEK 2017 PREVIEW AND DISPLAY...

DISPLAY WEEK 2017 PREVIEW AND DISPLAY MATERIALS

Official Publication of the Society for Information Display • www.informationdisplay.orgMarch/April 2017

Vol. 33, No. 2

Mar-Apr Cover_SID Cover 3/4/2017 10:05 AM Page 1

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2 Editorial: Onward to Display Weekn By Stephen P. Atwood

3 Industry Newsn By Jenny Donelan

4 Guest Editorial: Advances in Materials for Display Applicationsn By Ion Bita

6 Frontline Technology: Emerging Solution-Processable Luminescent Nanomaterials in Hybrid Structures Offer New Solutions for Displays andLighting As the development of quantum dot and perovskite luminescent materials accelerates, it isexpected that these materials will increasingly gain applications in display and lighting markets,particularly in hybrid structures with state-of-the-art phosphor or OLED systems.n By Yajie Dong, Hao Chen, Juan He, and Shin-Tson Wu

16 Frontline Technology: Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Is a KeyNew Technology for OLED Displays TADF emitters are poised to contribute to the next material-driven advancement of the OLEDindustry, making OLEDs ideal for even more applications.n By Daniel Volz

22 2017 Honors and Awards: SID Recognizes Outstanding Members of the Display CommunityThis year’s winners of the Society for Information Display’s Honors and Awards include Hiroyuki Ohshima, who will receive the Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize; Shui-Chih Alan Lien,who has earned the Jan Rajchman Prize; Martin S. Banks, who will receive the Otto SchadePrize; Deng-Ke Yang, who has earned the Slottow-Owaki Prize; Kenneth I. Werner, who willreceive the Lewis and Beatrice Winner Award; and Yi-Pai Huang, who will receive the inauguralPeter Brody Prize.n By Jenny Donelan

28 Show Review: The 11 Best Display-Related Finds at CES 2017The most exciting near- and medium-term developments seen at the show revolved aroundquantum dots. And there were other surprises.n By Ken Werner

34 2017 Display Week Symposium Preview: AR/VR, Digital Signage, DisplayMaterials, and Wearables Headline Display Week 2017 Technical Program inLos AngelesA bumper crop of papers submitted to this year’s symposium ensures that the field will be broad as well as deep. Highlights include novel technologies like aerial displays, perovskites, and tunable microlens arrays, as well as practical advances in manufacturing and metrology that will help you do your job better. This is your once-a-year opportunity to find out what’s happening in the field of displays.n By Jenny Donelan

40 Q&A: ID Interviews the Principals of IRYStecn Conducted by Jenny Donelan

45 SID News

48 Corporate Members and Index to Advertisers

Information Display 2/17 1

MARCH/APRIL 2017VOL. 33, NO. 2

InformationDISPLAYcontents

For Industry News, New Products, Current and Forthcoming Articles, see www.informationdisplay.org

INFORMATION DISPLAY (ISSN 0362-0972) is published 6 times ayear for the Society for Information Display by Palisades ConventionManagement, 411 Lafayette Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10003;William Klein, President and CEO. EDITORIAL AND BUSINESSOFFICES: Jenny Donelan, Editor in Chief, Palisades ConventionManagement, 411 Lafayette Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10003;telephone 212/460-9700. Send manuscripts to the attention of theEditor, ID. SID HEADQUARTERS, for correspondence on sub-scriptions and membership: Society for Information Display, 1475 S. Bascom Ave., Ste. 114, Campbell, CA 95008; telephone 408/879-3901, fax -3833. SUB SCRIP TIONS: Information Display is distributedwithout charge to those qualified and to SID members as a benefit ofmembership (annual dues $100.00). Subscriptions to others: U.S. &Canada: $75.00 one year, $7.50 single copy; elsewhere: $100.00 oneyear, $7.50 single copy. PRINTED by Wiley & Sons. PERMISSIONS:Abstracting is permitted with credit to the source. Libraries are per-mitted to photocopy beyond the limits of the U.S. copyright law forprivate use of patrons, providing a fee of $2.00 per article is paid to theCopyright Clearance Center, 21 Congress Street, Salem, MA 01970(reference serial code 0362-0972/17/$1.00 + $0.00). Instructors arepermitted to photocopy isolated articles for noncommercial classroomuse without fee. This permission does not apply to any special reportsor lists published in this magazine. For other copying, reprint orrepublication permission, write to Society for Information Display, 1475S. Bascom Ave., Ste. 114, Campbell, CA 95008. Copyright © 2017Society for Information Display. All rights reserved.

In the Next Issue ofInformation Display

Show Issue/AutomotiveDisplays• 2017 Display Industry Awards• Products on Display • Interior Vehicle Lighting• Conformable LCDs• Vehicle Display Marketplace• Q&A with Luminit

SIDSOCIETY FOR INFORMATION DISPLAY

DISPLAY WEEK 2017 PREVIEW AND DISPLAY MATERIALS

Official Publication of the Society for Information Display • www.informationdisplay.orgMarch/April 2017

Vol. 33, No. 2

Cover Design: Acapella Studios, Inc.

ON THE COVER: The winners of this year’smajor awards from SID are: (clockwise from topleft) Shui-Chih Alan Lien, Kenneth I. Werner, Martin S. Banks, Deng-Ke Yang, Yi-Pai Huang, and Hiroyuki Ohshima.

ID TOC Issue2 p1_Layout 1 3/6/2017 4:10 PM Page 1



Onward to Display Weekby Stephen P. Atwood

It’s hard to believe we’re here again, just a couple monthsaway from Display Week 2017. This year, the big show isin sunny and warm Los Angeles beginning on May 21 andspanning the entire week with short courses, seminars, business and market focus conferences, the InternationalSymposium, some great keynotes, and the world-class

Display Week Exhibition. I’ll have more to say about this later on but if you have notyet made your plans to visit, you should! I’m sure by the time you read this, the winterrains will have ended and the southern California landscape will be vivid, bold, and aswelcoming as ever.

Our cover story this month celebrates the SID 2017 Honors and Awards, which arepresented each year by the Society for Information Display to honor those individualswho have made outstanding contributions to the field of displays. Here at ID we doour best to capture the essence of their achievements in the biographies and citationsthoughtfully compiled by our own Jenny Donelan. But nothing we write can comeclose to documenting the lifetimes’ worth of ideas, challenges, setbacks, inspirations,and successes that these individuals have experienced on behalf of our industry.

As Jenny describes in this year’s article, great innovation often comes from team-work and collaboration, where new ideas are born and get distilled through a processof collaboration, either intentional or accidental. Inspiration can come from the teamin your midst, or from the wider world (such as conferences like Display Week),which these days also includes the incredible on-line community that we all interactwith. Inspiration can come from students, teachers, business leaders, peers, or evenfrom a fortuitous invitation to speak at an SID meeting, as happened to one of thisyear’s award winners some time ago. Regardless of the source, it’s what people dowith that inspiration that counts, and this year’s award winners have all made greatcontributions to the world of displays, either through direct invention or throughenthusiastic teaching, mentoring, and supporting of those around them! While the honors are being bestowed on these leaders of the display industry, the real honor goes to those of us who have had the privilege of knowing them, working with them,learning from them, and using their innovations to build better products that enrichpeople’s lives.

Among those being recognized this year is one individual I have had the privilege to know personally and who is a former editor of Information Display magazine. Ken Werner was a caring and thoughtful steward of this publication when I first methim and through the years he has been a trusted advisor to me on many issues. Kencontinues to be a strong supporter of SID and ID magazine, sharing his writing talentswith us on numerous occasions (including this issue), frequently speaking at SID events and organizing conferences, and being a leading consultant to our great industry. His recognition, as well as that of all the others, is well deserved and we saycongratulations to all the honorees!

Display MaterialsOur technical theme for this month is Display Materials, and it was developed masterfully by our returning Guest Editor Ion Bita. To get a good introduction to boththe latest developments in this field and the articles covering materials in this issue,

2 Information Display 2/17

Executive Editor: Stephen P. Atwood617/306-9729, [email protected]

Editor in Chief: Jenny Donelan603/924-9628, [email protected]

Global Advertising Director: Stephen Jezzard, [email protected]

Senior Account ManagerPrint & E Advertising: Roland Espinosa201-748-6819, [email protected]

Editorial Advisory BoardStephen P. Atwood, Chair

Azonix Corp., U.S.A.

Ionnis ( John) KymissisElectrical Engineering Department, Columbia

University

Allan KmetzConsultant, U.S.A.

Larry WeberConsultant, U.S.A.

Guest EditorsApplied Vision

Martin Banks, University of California at Berkeley

Automotive DisplaysKarlheinz Blankenbach, Pforzheim University

Digital Signage Gary Feather, NanoLumens

MaterialsIon Bita, Apple

Wearables/FlexibleRuiqing (Ray) Ma, Universal Display Corp.

Light-Field and Holographic SystemsNikhil Balram, Google

Contributing EditorsAlfred Poor, ConsultantSteve Sechrist, ConsultantPaul Semenza, ConsultantJason Heikenfeld, University of Cincinnati Raymond M. Soneira, DisplayMate Technologies

InformationDISPLAY

The opinions expressed in editorials, columns, and feature articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions ofthe Executive Editor or Publisher of Information DisplayMagazine, nor do they necessarily reflect the position ofthe Society for Information Display.

editorial

(continued on page 46)

ID Editorial Issue2 p2,46-47_Layout 1 3/4/2017 10:24 AM Page 2





Samsung Addresses Note 7IncidentsIn a live streaming press conference from Seoul, Korea, in late January, Samsung announcedthat poorly designed and manufactured batter-ies from two different sources were the reasonthat some of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphoneshad overheated, occasionally to the point ofcatching fire or exploding. Last fall, Samsungcancelled production of the Note 7 andrecalled all the phones that had been sold orwere in the sales channel. The company esti-mates that to date, approximately 96% ofphones globally have been returned throughits recall program. Samsung also revealed thatit lost approximately $5 billion as a result ofthe recall and production stoppage.

In the conference, D. J. Koh, president ofSamsung’s mobile communications business,expressed apologies to Galaxy Note 7 cus-tomers, mobile operators, and retail and distri-bution partners, while also thanking them fortheir patience and continued support. Thecompany indicated that its latest flagshipGalaxy S smartphone could be delayed as aresult of enhanced product safety measures ithas put into place.1 (The traditional forum forGalaxy S series launches is the Mobile WorldCongress trade show in February.)2

Several commentators have suggested thatthe design of the phone itself worked in con-junction with the badly made batteries tocause the problems.2 Samsung’s ratherexhaustive infographics, released as part ofthe press conference, show that – in additionto using rigorously designed and tested batter-ies – it is adding increased protection withinits next phone in the form of enhanced batterypackaging and software algorithms to protect

against over-charging and over-temperatureconditions (Fig. 1).

During the press conference, Samsung alsoannounced the formation of a battery advisorygroup made up of academics from the Univer-sity of Cambridge, UC Berkeley, and otherinstitutions, to ensure battery safety andproper procedures in the future.


industry news

Fig. 1: Samsung’s product designs going forward include better battery standards as well as shielding and software algorithms to manage charging temperature, current, and duration. Image courtesy Samsung Electronics.1

Manufacturers Adopt New Color Gamut Specifications

In our July/August 2016 issue, we published a Frontline Technology article by Raymond M. Soneira that discussed important aspects of modern color gamuts in use by the display industry today. One point that Soneira highlighted involvedthe continuing use of the National Television System Committee (NTSC) colorgamut in display specifications. Soneira explained: “…the NTSC color gamut was

never actually implemented for volume commercial production of color TVs. As a result,the NTSC gamut was never an actual standard color gamut, and there is essentially noconsumer content based on the true NTSC color gamut. This is amusing (and annoying)because now, more than 60 years later, many manufacturers and reviewers are stillquoting and referring to the NTSC gamut as if it were some sort of state-of-the-art stan-dard, while in fact it has been obsolete and colorimetrically disjointed from most otherstandard gamuts for an incredibly long time.” The NTSC gamut is significantly different from all other color gamuts in use today,

so NTSC is not useful as a gamut metric. In particular, the NTSC blue primary coordinaterepresents a very different spectral response than the blue of current standard gamuts, so current content would look rather poor on a display that actually was “100% NTSC” compliant. In recent years, other authors have voiced concerns about NTSC on the pages of this

magazine; and we established an editorial policy of only publishing NTSC gamut speci-fications when the authors could not provide any other more up-to-date color gamutdata for their results. We are pleased to note that recently the message appears to begetting across. In the recent technical specs published for the Microsoft Surface Studio28-in. PixelSense Display, the company clearly references the sRGB and DCI-P3 colorgamuts. When Google initially published its specs for the Pixel smartphone, it referencedthe NTSC gamut, but recently Google has updated its verbiage to say “95% DCI-P3 Coverage.” The Apple iPhone 7 display specification also references “P3,” which we taketo mean DCI-P3 as well. It's harder to find color gamut specs for TV products, but a look at some of the newest

announcements shows that they too seem to be moving away from NTCS and toward DCI-P3. We say thanks and tip our hats to those of you who heard the message and are adopt-ing these new and much more meaningful color gamut specifications for your products.It is important that the display industry, including both display and device manufac-

turers, specify a product's color gamut in terms of the standards of today, such as sRGB,Rec.709, Adobe RGB, DCI-P3, and Rec.2020 (now BT.2020). This will allow consumers(including developers) to better compare the colors and color accuracy of the displaysthey are buying.Now, if we could only get everyone to specify “luminance” instead of “brightness”

when referring to the measured light output …


ID Industry News Issue2 p3,44_Layout 1 3/4/2017 10:34 AM Page 3

http://informationdisplay.org/IDArchive/2016/JulyAugust/FrontlineTechnologyDisplayColorGamuts.aspx

Advances in Materials for Display Applications

by Ion Bita

At the end of May we will once again welcome the Societyfor Information Display’s annual Display Week meeting.Among the wide variety of technology topics included inthe program, Display Materials and Processes (DMP) wasselected as a special topic track for this year. I have been

working with SID program committee colleagues to organize this DMP track, so I was glad to learn that the March/April 2017 issue of Information Display was going to include a section on materials. I’d like to take this opportunity to share with you our excitement for the work in materials that is helping to pave the way for future generations of displays.The number and quality of the papers received in the DMP technical track clearly

reaffirmed the role of materials as one of the main pillars in the development of newdisplay technologies and applications. With collaboration across all SID program committee teams, almost 40 presentations were identified and assigned to the DMPtrack, including papers on emerging electronic and optoelectronic materials, flexiblesubstrates, advanced laser processing, nanomaterials, OLED, LCD, automotive, andtouch-sensing applications.The list above offers an up-to-date perspective of the current trends shaping materials

innovation and development across the display industry and in academic research labs.For readers interested in more details, we recommend reviewing the conference program already published on the Display Week website. Most importantly, we recommendattending the conference during May 21–26 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. In this issue, we include articles on two exciting topics that are currently the subject

of intense investigations in the international display community.In the first article, a team led by Professor Yajie Dong from the Department of

Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Central Florida gives an overview of emerging luminescent nanomaterials for applications in displays and lightingdevices. Specifically, the authors give an introduction to metal halide perovskite materials and their potential for photoluminescence (PL) and electroluminescence (EL) based display applications. The excitement driving renewed interest in perovskite-based optoelectronics stems from recent progress for photovoltaic applications, coupled with good potential for display applications based on the materials’ narrow-band emission spectra, which rivals those produced by semiconductor quantum dots. Organic-inorganic perovskites (OIPs) of interest in displays have been metal halides

of AMX3 composition, where X is a halide (F–, Cl–, Br–, I– anions), and M is a rela-tively small cation (Pb2+, Sn2+, etc.) with stable octahedral coordination forming anextended network of MX6 octahedra layers intercalated with larger A cations (organic,such as CH3NH3

+, or inorganic, such as Cs+). This particular crystal structure leads tovery well-defined optoelectronic properties due to the formation of an effective quan-tum well structure, as the semiconducting inorganic layer is confined between organiclayers with larger band gaps. This is one of the main attractive properties of OIP,where efficient and narrow band emission (<20 nm FWHM, with PL quantum yield70–90%) can be achieved even with low-cost processes. This is due to OIP’s intrinsictolerance for material processing variations, unlike the traditional case of semiconduc-tor nanoparticles, which require a tight dimensional control.


guest editorial


SID EXECUTIVE COMMITTEEPresident: Y. S. KimPresident-Elect: H. SeetzenRegional VP, Americas: S. PeruvembaRegional VP, Asia: X. YanRegional VP, Europe: P. KathirgamanathanTreasurer: T. TsujimuraSecretary: A. BhowmikPast President: A. Ghosh

DIRECTORSBangalore: T. RuckmongathenBay Area: J. MillerBeijing: Q. YanBelarus: A. SmirnovCanada: J. ViethGreater Dayton: D. G. HopperDelaware Valley: J. W. Parker IIIMetropolitan Detroit: J. KanickiFrance: F. TemplierHong Kong: H. S. KwokIndia: V. N. MohapatraIsrael: G. GolanJapan: K. KondohKorea: J. SoukLatin America: A. MammanaLos Angeles: L. TannasMid-Atlantic: J. KymissisMid-Europe: H. De SmetNew England: R. PowellPacific Northwest: A. AbileahRussia: V. BelyaevSingapore: T. WongSouthwest: K. SarmaTaipei: J. ChenTexas: Z. YanivU.K. & Ireland: S. DayUkraine: V. SerganUpper Mid-West: B. Hufnagel

COMMITTEE CHAIRSAcademic: H. J. KimArchives: L. Tannas, Jr.Audit: S. O’Rourke / R. PowellBylaws: A. SilzarsChapter Formation: D. McCartneyConventions: P. DrzaicConventions Vice-Chair, BC and MC: A. SilzarsConventions Vice-Chair, Europe: I. SageConventions Vice-Chair, Asia: K.-W. WhangDefinitions & Standards: T. FiskeDisplay Industry Awards: W. ChenHonors & Awards: S-T. WuI-Zone: H. DoshiInvestment: H. SeetzenLong-Range Planning: H. SeetzenMarketing: S. PeruvembaMembership: H.-S. KwokMembership Vice-Chair, Social Media: H. AtkuriNominating: A. GhoshPublications: J. KymissisSenior Member Grade: H. SeetzenWeb Site: H. Seetzen

CHAPTER CHAIRSBangalore: S. SambadamBay Area: R. GrulkheBeijing: N. XuBelarus: V. A. VyssotskiCanada: A. KitaiDayton: J. LuuDelaware Valley: J. BlakeDetroit: J. ByrdFrance: L. VignauHong Kong: M. WongIndia: S. KauraIsrael: I. Ben DavidJapan: K. KondoKorea: S. T. ShinLatin America: V. MammanaLos Angeles: L. IboshiMid-Atlantic: G. MelnikMid-Europe: H. J. LempNew England: J. GandhiPacific Northwest: K. YugawaRussia: M. SychovSingapore/Malaysia: C. C. ChaoSouthwest: M. StrnadTaipei: C. C. WuTexas: R. FinkU.K. & Ireland: M. JonesUkraine: V. SorokinUpper Mid-West: M. Wilson

SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION DISPLAY1475 S. Bascom Ave., Ste. 114, Campbell, CA 95008408/879-3901 e-mail: [email protected]://www.sid.org

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S olution-processable semiconductingnanomaterials, including cadmium-based orcadmium-free colloidal quantum dots (QDs)1,2

and, most recently, metal-halide perovskites3,have emerged from academic labs to becomepromising luminescent component materialsfor optics and optoelectronics in the displayand lighting industries. Working as independ-ent players in either photoluminescence (PL)or electroluminescence (EL) mode, thesematerials could help two competing display technologies (LCDs and organic light-emitting diodes [OLEDs]) in achieving better color quality and higher efficiencies. A recent article published in this magazine by Wang and Sun,4“Quantum-Dot and Quantum-Rod Displays –the Next Big Wave,” provided a comprehen-sive overview of this technology, covering bothQD-enhanced LCD products in the marketand active QD LED research in the lab.

QDs and perovskites are often touted asdisruptive material systems that could com-pletely replace traditional phosphor-based

LEDs for backlighting LCDs or organic material-based OLEDs. In the near future,however, these materials are more likely tocomplement than to replace traditional tech-nologies for optimizing color and efficiency in display and lighting applications.

This article will provide an overview of thetechnology status of solution-processableluminescent QDs and metal-halide perovskitenanomaterials, as well as a report on some ofthe most recent developments on both PL andEL fronts, and a vision of how these materialscould work with traditional technologies inhybrid structures for display and lightings inthe near future.

Status Overview of Colloidal QuantumDots and Perovskites: Merits andChallengesAs outlined in Wang and Sun’s article4, themerits of QDs and perovskites include: • Precisely tunable emission wavelength

through size and/or composition control ofQDs and perovskites that can cover a widerange of wavelengths (Fig. 1)

• Highly saturated colors (narrow emissionbandwidth)

• High luminescence efficiency• The ability to be easily solution-processed

into large areas with thin, flexible form factors

Emerging Solution-Processable LuminescentNanomaterials in Hybrid Structures Offer NewSolutions for Displays and Lighting As the development of quantum dot and perovskite luminescent materials accelerates, it isexpected that these materials will increasingly gain applications in display and lighting markets, particularly in hybrid structures with state-of-the-art phosphor or OLED systems.

by Yajie Dong, Hao Chen, Juan He, and Shin-Tson Wu

Yajie Dong and Shin-Tson Wu are facultymembers at the University of Central Florida.They can be reached at [email protected] [email protected], respectively. Hao Chenand Juan He are graduate students at theUniversity of Central Florida.

6 Information Display 2/170362-0972/2/2017-006$1.00 + .00 © SID 2017

frontline technology

Fig. 1: The tunable emission spectral range of solution-processable colloidal quantum dots isshown at the top and that of perovskite materials is shown at the bottom.

ID Dong p6-14_Layout 1 3/4/2017 11:05 AM Page 6



A closer look at these specific material sys-tems can provide a better understanding oftheir merits and respective remaining chal-lenges.

Colloidal Quantum Dots: Cd-based vs.Cd-freeColloidal QDs are nanometer-sized (e.g. 2 ~10 nm) semiconductor particles whose optical properties are mainly determined bythe so-called quantum confinement effect.Simply put, the quantum confinement effectindicates that when the sizes of the semicon-ductor nanoparticles fall below a certainvalue, their effective electronic and opticalproperties (and hence the fluorescent lightwavelength) will deviate from the value oftheir bulk counterpart and be dependent on theparticle size. The smaller their size, the largertheir electronic bandgap (and thus the shortertheir emission wavelength) will be. Therefore,the emission wavelength of QDs can be tunedsimply by adjusting the particle size duringthe synthesis process. The purity of the emis-sion color will depend on the size distributionof the nanoparticles.

As the most developed and well-character-ized QD material system, II-VI semiconductorcadmium selenide (CdSe) has a bulk bandgapvalue of 1.73 eV (corresponding emission is~716 nm). As schematically illustrated in Fig. 1, the emission spectrum of CdSe-basedQDs can be adjusted to cover the entire visibleregion by tailoring their particle size. State-of-the-art CdSe-based QDs exhibit a quitenarrow full width at half maximum (FWHM)of 20 ~ 30 nm and super-high luminescentquantum efficiency (> 95%). QD materialswith such high optical quality seem to be aperfect choice for display applications andhave already been employed in some commer-cial products since the first generation QD-enhanced LCD TV (with QD componentsfrom QD Vision) was released by Sony in2013, followed by other brands such as TCL,Haisen, etc. However, cadmium is considereda toxic element, and the Restriction of Hazar-dous Substances (RoHS) directive issued bythe European Union requires that the maxi-mum cadmium content be less than 100 partsper million (ppm) in consumer electronicproducts. This has been a major concern andhas limited the industry’s adoption of CdSe-based QDs.

The other established QD system, indiumphosphide (InP), which is cadmium-free, has a

smaller bulk bandgap value of 1.35 eV (corre-sponding emission ~918 nm). As a result, toreach the same emission wavelength, the sizeof InP QD particles has to be much smallerthan that of CdSe QDs (Fig. 1). This restric-tion complicates the nanocrystal synthesisprocess and makes InP QDs’ size distributiondifficult to control. Thus, the emission of InP-based QDs generally has a broader FWHM (> 40 nm) and lower efficiency. Despite theexisting performance gap, InP-based QDshave gained significant momentum, as exem-plified by Samsung’s recent flagship SUHDTVs, which have been rebranded as QLEDTVs for 2017.6 It should be noted that Sam-sung’s “QLED” TVs remain PL-based LCDproducts and shouldn’t be confused with theemissive EL QLEDs to be discussed later on.

Metal Halide Perovskites: History andChallengesMetal halide perovskites are a group ofemerging optoelectronic materials with per-ovskite structure AMX3, where X is generallya halide (F, Cl, Br, I) anion, and M and A arecations of different sizes. The smaller cationM is usually a divalent metal (Pb2+, Sn2+, orother metal ions) with stable octahedral coor-dination, forming an extended network ofMX6 octahedra intercalated with largerorganic or inorganic cations of A (Fig. 2).Among the many options of A cations, of par-ticular interest to the display community couldbe the organic methylammonium (CH3NH3

+,MA) or cesium (Cs+) ions, since compoundsof these two (e.g. MAPbX3 or CsPbX3) exhibitoptical properties of similar or even betterperformances than QDs for certain colors (e.g. green).

While the recent fame of perovskite materi-als is mainly due to the unprecedented effi-ciency gains of organic-inorganic perovskite(OIP) based solar photovoltaics7, the historyof perovskite research for displays can betraced at least as far back as the 1990s, whenDavid Mitzi at IBM systematically studiedOIPs for light-emitting devices and thin-filmtransistors.8,9 The OIP was regarded as aunique crystalline organic-inorganic hybridsystem in which inorganic componentsoffered the potential for a wide range of elec-tronic and magnetic properties, substantialmechanical hardness, and desired thermal stability. In addition, organic molecules pro-vided high fluorescence efficiency, largepolarizability, plastic mechanical properties,

ease of processing, and structural diversity.Being crystalline meant that their structurescould be well characterized and their chemi-cal, electrical, and optical properties fine-tuned at the molecular level. In certain cases,OIPs can be considered as natural quantumwell structures with semiconducting inorganiclayers confined by organic layers with largebandgaps. So the quantum confinement effectcould be achieved without any physical parti-cle size limits.9

Recent studies on metal halide perovskiteshave extended the materials systems toinclude both OIPs [e.g. MAPbX3 (X=Cl, Br,I)] and purely inorganic perovskites such asCsPbX3 (X = Cl, Br, I) (Fig. 1). Meanwhile,the merits of most perovskites seem to res-onate with those early considerations of OIPsin the 1990s: (i) these materials can be easilysolution-processed into crystalline thin films;(ii) with simple tuning of the halide compo-nents, they can emit over the entire visiblespectrum; (iii) the purity of their emissioncolor seems to be relatively independent of their particle size. Particularly for CH3NH3PbBr3or CsPbBr3, highly efficient green emissionwith a narrow FWHM of less than 20 nm canbe achieved even with large particle size variations. This capability makes these perovskites especially promising for wide-color-gamut display applications.

It should be noted that the original chal-lenge that hindered Dr. Mitzi from furtherexploration of OIPs is still relevant today8:Most perovskite materials have major stabilityissues. The instabilities of perovskites areoften attributed to their low formation energy,or the energy needed to form them (~0.1–0.3eV), which makes it easy for them to be con-


Fig. 2: This scheme represents the crystalstructure of a perovskite with chemical formula AMX3.


veniently solution processed, but also rendersthem vulnerable to external stresses, such asmoisture, heat, light, or electrical field.8,10 Ithas been observed that, in the presence ofmoisture and oxygen, the OIP grains growspontaneously even at room temperature,leading to a higher density of defects and ashorter carrier lifetime.11 While it can be envisioned that OLED encapsulation technol-ogy such as cover glass or barrier films couldhelp protect perovskite devices as well, theintrinsic stability of perovskite materials alsoneeds to be significantly enhanced.

Three passivation strategies have beendeveloped to stabilize perovskites, with suc-cesses of different levels. One commonly usedapproach involves film formation throughimpregnation and pore filling of a pre-formedmesoporous inorganic matrix (such as TiO2 orAl2O3) with the perovskite precursor solu-tions.3,7 However, the solvent evaporation from pre-formed, and thus static, inorganic porousstructures will inevitably lead to partiallyexposed, unprotected perovskites. In fact, ithas been reported that significant decomposi-tion already occurs during annealing of per-ovskites on porous TiO2 at 85°C, even in aninert atmosphere. Further coverage of theseperovskite films with carbon nano-tube/poly-mer composites demonstrated impressive“water-resistant” devices, but such macroscalepassivation leaves perovskites vulnerable topotential degradation due to film leakage.

The second strategy, solution-based synthe-sis of surfactant-protected perovskite nano-particles, employs a surfactant-assistedgrowth technique similar to Cd-based QDsynthesis. This technique can achieve passiva-tion of individual nanocrystal grains and leadto colloidal perovskite QDs (both OIPs12–15

and inorganic perovskites16,17) with enhancedstability and photoluminescence quantumyield (PLQY). As shown in Fig. 3, by tuninghalogen components, the emission spectra ofboth MAPbX3 and CsPbX3 QDs can cover theentire visible spectrum. Of the various demon-strated colors, the green emission of bromideperovskites (MAPbBr3 and CsPbBr3) standsout with its ultra-high color purity (FWHM<20 nm) and high PLQY (~70–90%). Thisgreen purity is particularly interesting for display applications, because the humanvisual system is very sensitive to green color,and slight changes in green can lead to bigcolor gamut variation. By comparison, eventhe best CdSe-based green QDs normallyshow a broader emission, with FWHM > 25nm. While surfactant passivation can stabilizeperovskite QDs in the solution phase, whenthey are processed as thin films, their effi-ciency tends to be substantially reducedbecause of quenching induced by spontaneousQD aggregations.18 In addition, the reactionyield of perovskite QDs remains low. Thelarge overlap between absorption and emis-sion spectra [Fig. 3(e)] also indicates that

self-absorption could be an issue for PL or ELapplications.

The third strategy involves deposition ofcomposite films from mixtures of perovskiteprecursors with protecting media, such asorganic small molecules, polymers,19 or inor-ganic nanoparticles.20 Although inherentlysimple, this approach often results in seriousphase separation between OIPs and the pro-tecting media, leading to large OIP grain-sizevariation, broad PL peaks, lower PLQY, andunsatisfactory robustness. In the most recentstudy, by controlling the crystallizationprocess from precursor solutions, a green perovskite containing polymer films with very high PLQY (94%) was reported,although its thermal stability remains unsatisfactory.21

Stable Perovskite-Polymer CompositeFilms via Swelling-deswellingMicroencapsulations A microencapsulation strategy has recentlybeen developed by the authors’ team toachieve well-dispersed, intimately passivatedOIP (CH3NH3PbX3, MAPbBr3) nanoparticlesinside polymer matrices. This formulationcould lead to OIP-polymer composite filmswith high photoluminescence efficiency, colorpurity, and ultra-high stability against heat andwater exposure.22

This strategy takes advantage of the well-known swelling-deswelling phenomenon in



Fig. 3: In (a), an optical photograph (top left) shows suspensions of mixed halide MAPbX3 (X being I, Br, or Cl) perovskites under visible and UVlight, with (b) their corresponding PL spectra.14 In (c) (top center) an optical photograph shows suspensions of mixed halide CsPbX3 (X being I,Br, or Cl) perovskites under UV light with (d) their corresponding PL spectra, and (e) typical optical absorption and PL spectra.16


polymer physics. When brought into contactwith good solvents, polymer chains will swelland expand, letting in solvents and solutes. Such expansion is generally reversible througha deswelling process, when the solvent isevaporated. OIP precursors can be introducedinto polymer matrices as solute through thesolvent-induced polymer swelling process.When the solvent is driven out of the polymermatrix (e.g. by heating), the OIP precursorswill be left within the matrix to react and formhigh-quality, well-dispersed OIP nanoparti-cles. Meanwhile, the polymer matrix willdeswell, shrink back, and form a coherent

barrier layer around the OIP nanoparticles,protecting them from water, oxygen, or heat in the surrounding environment [Fig. 4(a)].

This strategy was demonstrated to be gen-eral, effective, and robust. A series of techni-cally important polymer substrates (includingpolystyrene (PS), polycarbonate (PC), acry-lonitrile butadiene styrene [ABS], etc.,) thatswell in dimethylformamide solvent can beeasily converted into highly luminescent OIP-polymer composite films through either cottonswab painting [Fig. 4(b)] or spin coating [Fig. 4(c)] of OIP precursor solutions. Thesecomposite films show high photolumines-

cence quantum yield (PLQY) of up to 48%and superior color purity owing to FWHM assmall as 18 nm (narrower than even the best-performing CdSe-based green QDs).

Most importantly, these OIP-polymer com-posite films possess unprecedented water andheat stability. Some OIP-polymer compositefilms (MAPbBr3-PS, MAPbBr3-PC, andMAPbBr3-ABS films) can be immerseddirectly in water for two months, and experi-ence less than 7% reduction of PLQY, indicat-ing significant water stability [Fig. 4(d)].Among them, MAPbBr3-PS and MAPbBr3-PC composite films can survive boiling


Fig. 4: Above appears the swelling-deswelling microencapsulation strategy for OIP-polymer composite films. In (a) is a scheme of MAPbBr3 – a polymer composite film formation process through swelling-deswelling (the inset shows a typical emission spectrum of as-prepared films). In (b) and (c) are images of the luminescent composite samples prepared by cotton swab painting (b) or spin coating (c) under UV excitation (365 nm). Samples from left to right are MAPbBr3-PS, MAPbBr3-PC, MAPbBr3-ABS, MAPbBr3-CA, MAPbBr3-PVC and MAPbBr3-PMMArespectively. In (d) are shown stability characterizations of the composite film samples (MAPbBr3-PS, MAPbBr3-PC and MAPbBr3-ABS)immersed in water.


water treatment for 30 minutes with PLQYdegradation of less than 15% and 7%, respec-tively, indicating high thermal and water stabilities even without any special barrierlayer protection.22

Compared to Cd-based QDs, these per-ovskite-polymer composite films show clearadvantages in terms of simpler processing(thus potentially lower cost), better colorpurity, and lower toxicity (according to RoHSregulations, the allowable concentration limitfor Pb is 1,000 ppm, one order higher than that for Cd). Further investigations of PL efficiency and long-term stability under high optical flux conditions are needed to estimate their potential as a lower-cost, yetbetter-performing alternative to the green QD downconverters used in today’s QD-enhanced LCDs.

Photoluminescent Perovskites Workwith QDs or Phosphors for LCDBacklightsWhile perovskite materials emitting other colors are under active development, the out-standing green perovskite-polymer compositefilms could work synergistically with otherred downconverters in the near future. BesidesCdSe- or InP-based red QDs, various narrow-band red phosphors could also be their goodpartners. Specifically, a K2SiF6:Mn4+

(KSF/PFS) phosphor has been demonstratedto be a red downconverter with narrow emis-sion peaks centered at 631 nm, with high con-version efficiency and high stability that couldenable on-chip LED integrations. Recently,KSF/PFS phosphors have been commercial-ized by GE under RadiantRed and TriGaintrademarks and have started to be adopted by

major customers in the display and lightingindustries.23,24 Another narrowband red phos-phor (Sr[LiAl3N4]:Eu2+, SLA) with longeremission wavelength also exhibits an excep-tional stability.25 In the following section, wewill discuss two configuration options inwhich these red downconverters could workwith green perovskite-polymer compositefilms for LCD backlight unit (BLU) applica-tions, and analyze the potential color gamutperformance gains in these configurations.

Three commonly used downconverter back-light geometries are “on-chip,” “on-edge,”and “on-surface”.26 With simple, large-areaprocessability and low cost, perovskite-poly-mer composite films are ideally suited for“on-surface” configuration. With high thermalstability, KSF/PFS or SLA phosphors can beapplied in an “on-chip” configuration. For



Fig. 5: The integration of perovskite-polymer composite films is shown with various red downconverters. Above are backlight system configura-tion for: (a) blue LED + green OIP + red QDs; (b) blue LED + green OIP + red phosphor (or red QDs in future); (c) the spectra of primary colors used for calculation; and (d) RGB color primaries in CIE 1931. Rec.2020 is plotted for reference. Insets on the right show relative posi-tions of different red emitters.


QDs, while all three configurations have beenreported, the currently commercialized prod-ucts use “on-surface” configuration, and arecalled quantum dot enhancement films(QDEFs). Thus, the combination of green perovskite-polymer composite films and QDor phosphor can be carried out in the follow-ing two geometries:

(1) Blue LED with on-surface green OIPabove red QDs. Fig. 5(a) shows theconfiguration of “back-to-back” greenOIP/red QDs film pumped by blueLED. In terms of reducing reabsorptionand enhancing the photoluminescence,the layered structure with green emit-ters on top of red emitters was found tobe more effective. Considering theirwavelength tunability, QD spectra witha series of peak wavelengths (630, 635,640 nm) have been analyzed.

(2) Blue LED with on-chip red KSF/PFSphosphor/red SLA phosphor and on-surface green OIP [Fig. 5(b)].

Fig. 5(c) shows the spectra of high-powerblue LED, green OIP-polymer compositefilm, and red QDs or phosphors. Their respec-tive positions in the CIE 1931 have beenmarked in Fig. 5(d).

Table 1 lists the analysis results of colorgamut coverage and total light efficiencies(TLEs) when a commercial color filter andliquid-crystal system are taken into considera-tion.26 Clearly, in order to gain wide colorgamut while maintaining a moderate TLE,BLUs with green OIP-polymer compositefilms and 630-nm QDs or KSF phosphor are

ideal choices, with nearly 90% Rec.2020 andaround 20 lumens-per-watt efficiency. Amongthese, the combination of on-chip KSF phos-phor and on-surface perovskite-polymer filmare particularly promising for low-cost, effi-cient, color-vivid, and cadmium-free BLUsfor LCDs.

Electroluminescent Colloidal QuantumDot and Perovskites for Displays andLighting When using QDs or perovskites as the emitting layer in an OLED-like EL device structure,quantum dot LEDs (QLEDs) or perovskiteLEDs (PeLEDs) can be achieved. Because ofthe unique material merits discussed in previ-ous sections, QLEDs and PeLEDs promise toenable solution-processable, highly efficientlight-emitting devices with tunable colors ofhigh purity. At the same time, the challenges

introduced earlier (such as stability issues andcolor variations) remain potential obstaclesfor these materials’ EL applications in dis-plays or lighting.

PeLEDs and QLEDs: DevelopmentStatus Varies for Different ColorsWith the upsurge of perovskite solar cellresearch, PeLEDs have been revisited in thepast several years in either forward28 orinverted29,30 OLED structures, and even insingle-layer, light-emitting electrochemicalcell structures.31 For PeLEDs with colors indisplay-relevant regions, green devices are themost developed, with demonstrated efficien-cies of 42.9Cd/A28. However, it should benoted that very few papers have reported life-time data for PeLED devices, suggesting thatreliability remains one big challenge forPeLEDs that needs to be addressed before the


Table 1. Below are the Rec.2020 color gamut coverages in CIE 1931 and total light efficiencies (TLEs) of several proposed configurations.

BLU Red No LC/CF With CFEmitter Choice Rec.2020 Rec.2020 TLE (lm/W)

630nm 88.7% 89.6% 19.5

QDs 635nm 89.5% 90.5% 18.5

640nm 90.0% 91.2% 17.2

KSF Phosphor 88.2% 81.7% 20.2

SLA Phosphor 89.7% 85.2% 11.4

Fig. 6: Ultra-bright, highly efficient, low roll-off quantum-dot light-emitting devices (QLEDs) are demonstrated as follows: (a) spectra of QLEDelectroluminescence (inset: scheme of core/shell/ligand based quantum dots and photograph of a typical test chip); (b) luminance and currentdensity vs. driving voltage; and (c) luminous efficacy and current efficiency vs. driving current density for a typical device.


technology can be developed into somethingof broader industrial interest. For furtherdetails on PeLED developments, interestedreaders can turn to several recent reviewpapers.32–34

QLEDs are widely regarded as the nextgeneration of self-emissive displays afterOLEDs. Samsung’s recent acquisition of QDVision has been taken as a signal of the com-pany’s dedication to QDs and strong interestin QLEDs.35 Among QLEDs with visible colors,36–40 red QDs are currently the mostdeveloped in EL devices. Solution-processedCdSe-based red QLEDs have demonstratedefficiency and luminance that rival or beatstate-of-the-art thermal-evaporated redOLEDs, with narrow peak linewidths in the20- to 30-nm range.36,37,40 In contrast, green

and blue QLEDs remain inferior to theirOLED counterparts.38,39 This is partly becauseof the size-dependent quantum confinementeffect; i.e., red QDs usually have the biggestsize among QDs of all visible colors and can tolerate relatively large absolute size variationwhile still maintaining a tight percentage distribution, thus high color quality and efficiency.

In particular, the authors recently developedultra-bright and efficient deep red CdSe-based quantum dot light-emitting devices (QLEDs).40

The device EL spectrum shows an FWHM ofonly 22 nm at CIE coordinates of (0.69, 0.31).More importantly, these devices achievedhigh peak current efficiency (20.5 Cd/A at~20,000 Cd/m2 with a driving voltage of only3.5 V), high luminous power efficiency (with

a peak level of 20.8 Lm/W) and small effi-ciency roll-off at high driving current density(Fig. 6). Ultra-high luminance of 165,000Cd/m2 was achieved at a current density of1000 mA/cm2 with a driving voltage as low as5.8 V, which sets a new luminance record forexisting organic-related, red, light-emittingdevices.

Hybrid White OLED with Narrow RedQD Emitters for LightingConsidering the demonstrated merits andexisting challenges of QLEDs and PeLEDs, it will be difficult for them to displace OLEDscompletely in the near future. Instead, ahybrid device that could integrate the advan-tageous QD or perovskite components withexisting OLEDs will probably be a viable



Fig. 7: This spectra analysis of the advantages of hybrid WOLED incorporating narrow red QD emitters includes: the contour plot of (a) LER,(b) R9 and (c) CRI for hybrid WOLED spectra when replacing the red organic emitter peak with red QDs’ narrow spectra; (d) overlap improve-ment area for wavelength and intensity (surrounded by yellow line) when CRI > 82, LER > 341 lm/W, and R9 > –15, which are better than all theperformance metrics of the original WOLED; (e) spectra of WOLED and two typical spots A and B (as denoted in d) obtained by replacing the red organic emitter peak of the WOLED with red QD spectra at different wavelengths and relative intensities; and f) spectra of all-organic emitter WOLED from LG Display and all-QD WOLEDs.40


entry point for these materials to enter the display or lighting industry.

State-of-the-art white OLEDs (WOLEDs)use organic emitters for all colors and cannotachieve simultaneously high luminous effi-cacy and good color quality primarily due tothe absence of organic emitters with narrowred emission peaks.41 Integrating narrow red-emitting QDs with organic blue and greenemitters will help solve this problem. Theintegration could be based on tandem multi-stack structures (as in the all-organic WOLEDs from LG Display) or on a single-stack devicestructure in which emitters of different colorsshare the same electron/hole injection ortransport layers. Figure 5 analyzes the poten-tial benefit of replacing an existing redorganic emitter in a single-stack WOLEDdevice42 with red QDs’ narrow spectra of dif-ferent intensity or peak wavelength choices.The resultant spectra have been analyzed forthe enhancement of three key solid-state light-ing performance metrics: the Color RenderingIndex (CRI), R9, and luminous efficacy ofradiation (LER), and then compared to theoriginal OLED’s performance.

As shown separately in Fig. 7 (a)–(c), eachof these metrics can reach a very high value(with LERpeak = 387.5 lm/W, CRIpeak = 91,and R9 peak = 97) by simply tuning the peakwavelength and intensity of the red QD emit-ter. When comparing Fig. 7(a), (b), and (c),the overlapped region highlighted within theyellow boundary line indicates the parameterimprovement zone where the color perform-ance (CRI and R9) and efficacy (LER and

efficacy without extraction enhancement) canbe improved simultaneously. This overlaparea is large enough and provides sufficientdesign freedom to allow researchers to tune and optimize the three parameters. The authors have selected two representative points andlisted their corresponding LER, CRI, and R9in Table 2. In either case, all three parametershave been significantly improved compared tothe original white OLED. Case A can achieve~18% improvement in LER with comparablecolor performance to an all quantum-dot whiteLED,43 while Case B can get ~9.5% improve-ment in LER with much better color than anall-organic WOLED from LG Display.

These initial results show that narrowband red QD emitters can significantly improve both color rendering and optical efficiency overstate-of-the-art WOLEDs, where the ability to tune the peak wavelength and relativeintensity of red QDs gives the resulting hybridWOLED system the flexibility to achieve dif-ferent color or efficiency targets with the sameorganic emitter materials.44 So as long as theirrespective emission properties can be wellreserved in the hybrid system, integrating redQDs into WOLED emitters will bring break-throughs to the efficiency and color perform-ances of OLED-based solid-state lighting.

In addition, it should be noted that thishybrid WOLED concept will provide a hybriddevice platform for future developments.Novel materials, such as long-lifetime, high-efficiency, thermally activated, delayed-fluorescence (TADF) blue organic emitters, as discussed in another article in this issue,45

could be integrated into this platform in thefuture, leading to further performanceimprovements.

A Hybrid FutureAs emerging solution-processable lumines-cent nanomaterials, QDs and perovskites haveoutstanding merits of tunable color with highpurity and high efficiency, but still suffer fromstability issues for certain colors. Hybridiza-tion of these exciting new components withstate-of-the-art phosphor or organic materialsin PL or EL modes could accelerate theiradoption in the near term and favorablyimpact the display and lighting markets.

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Fig. 7 (d) and (e)].

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A 349 90 81

B 359 91 32

All organic WOLED 328 89 31by LG Display41

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loway, L. Qian, “High efficiency light-emitting devices based on quantum dots withtailored nanostructures,” Nature Photonics 9,259 (2015).39H. Shen, W. Cao, N. T. Shewmon, C. Yang,L. S. Li, J. Xue, “High-efficiency, low turn-onvoltage blue violet quantum-dot-based light-emitting diodes,” Nano Letters 15, 1211(2015).40Y. J. Dong, J.M. Caruge, Z. Q. Zhou, C. Hamilton, Z. Popovic, J. Ho, M. Stevenson, G. Liu, V. Bulovic, M. Bawendi, P. T. Kazlas,S. Coe-Sullivan, J. Steckel, “Ultra-bright,Highly Efficient, Low Roll-off Inverted Quan-tum-Dot Light Emitting Devices (QLEDs),”SID Symp. Dig. Tech. Pap. 46, 270 (2015).41https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/06/f32/ssl_rd-plan_%20jun2016_2.pdf42N. Sun, Q. Wang, Y. B. Zhao, Y. Chen, F. C. Zhao, J. S. Chen, D. G. Ma, “High-performance Hybrid White Organic Light-emitting Devices without an Interlayerbetween Fluorescent and PhosphorescentEmissive Regions,” Adv. Mater. 26, 1617(2014).43W. K. Bae, D. Lee, M. Park, H. Lee, J. Kwak, K. Char, C. Lee, S. Lee, “R/G/B/Natural White Light Thin Colloidal QuantumDot-Based Light-Emitting Devices,” Adv.Mater. 26, 6387 (2014). 44H. Chen, J. He, J. S. Chen, S. T. Wu, Y. J. Dong, “High Efficacy, High Color Quality Hybrid White OLEDs IncorporatingRed Quantum Dots with Narrow EmissionBands,” SID Symp. Dig. Tech. Pap. 47, 50(2016).45D. Voltz, “Thermally Activated DelayedFluorescence Is a Key New Technology forOLED Displays,” in this issue. n



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In the last few years, the development ofnew materials has had a significant impact onthe advancement of organic light-emittingdiodes (OLEDs). Thanks to these advancedmaterials, OLED displays are now being usedin smartwatches, smartphones, and TVs.However, there is still room for improvementin areas like display resolution and energyefficiency. Thermally activated delayed fluo-rescence (TADF) is a relatively new technol-ogy that has been developed to tackle theseissues. This article describes the crucial roleof emitter materials in OLED technology, andintroduces the TADF concept.

OLEDs were first developed in the 1990s,1but began to be used in commercial productsjust several years ago. Inside an OLED, themain properties are dictated by the so-called

emitter, a molecule that can make direct use ofthe energy provided by the electric current togenerate visible light. A simplified diagram ofan OLED appears in Fig. 1.

Role of the Emitter in OLEDsThree main principles are used to convertelectrical energy into light: fluorescence,phosphorescence, and thermally activated

Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Isa Key New Technology for OLED Displays TADF emitters are poised to contribute to the next material-driven advancement of the OLED industry, making OLEDs ideal for even more applications.

by Daniel Volz

Daniel Volz studied chemistry at the Karls-ruhe Institute of Technology and KarlsruheSchool of Optics and Photonics (KSOP) inGermany. He received his Ph.D. (summa cumlaude) in 2014. He joined CYNORA’s R&Ddepartment in 2009, where he served in vari-ous roles. Currently, he serves as MaterialStrategist and is responsible for the develop-ment of CYNORA’s material portfolio. Volzwas awarded with the Carl Roth Prize for sustainable use of chemicals in 2014 as wellas the Green Photonics Award and the KlausTschira Award for Achievements in the PublicUnderstanding of Science in 2015. He can bereached at [email protected].



Fig. 1: OLEDs consist of multiple thin, organic layers. While this simplified structure shows atotal of six layers including the substrate, commercial OLEDs sometimes consist of many morelayers – as many as 15 or more. The emitter or dopant materials are in the emissive layer.

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delayed fluorescence (TADF). In the earliestOLEDs, fluorescent materials (FLUO) wereused.3 Around 1998, it was found that phos-phorescent materials (PHOS) could also beused in OLEDs, which led to a significantincrease in efficiency.4,5 Recently, TADFmaterials have also been found to be suitablefor very efficient OLED devices.6–8 TADF canbe as efficient as phosphorescence, with up to100% internal quantum efficiency.

The impact of using different emitter mate-rials in commercial products can be seen inFig. 2, where selected key performance indi-cators are plotted for various generations ofSamsung’s Galaxy smartphones. The initialcommercialization of OLED displays waspossible only after the development of phos-phorescent red emitters with suitable stabilityand efficiency.4

Consequently, the first-generation Samsungphone, the S1, featured fluorescent materialsfor green and blue pixels, while red pixelscontained phosphorescent materials. After theintroduction of green phosphorescent materi-als, average power consumption dropped from2.5 to well below 1 watt. The display’s resolu-tion was also doubled to roughly 400 pixelsper inch. Using the more efficient phosphores-cent green materials allowed display manufac-turers to significantly decrease the size ofgreen pixels, which allowed for an increase in resolution.

The main differences between fluorescence,phosphorescence, and TADF are summarizedin Table 1 and Fig. 3. For fundamental physi-cal reasons, FLUO is less efficient than PHOSor TADF. The differences are caused by quan-tum-mechanical effects that lead to the forma-tion of two different kinds of excited stateswhen the electrical energy is being transferredto the emitter molecule: so-called singlet andtriplet excitons. Because of quantum statistics,singlets and triplets are formed in a ratio of1:3 upon recombination of electricallyinjected electrons and holes.7–9 FLUO is onlycapable of using singlet excitons, meaningthat only 25% of the formed excitons willgenerate light, while 75% of the electricenergy going into the OLED device is essen-tially lost.

PHOS and TADF employ two differentstrategies to generate photons from both singlet and triplet excitons. These strategiesenable 100% efficiency:

• PHOS emitter materials employ rareheavy metals such as platinum and irid-

ium to enable a quantum-mechanicalphenomenon called spin-orbit coupling,which increases the radiative rate oftriplet excitons. The main downside ofthis approach is the availability (andprice) of such elements. Even elements

such as uranium or rare earth elements(such as lanthanum and gadolinium) aremore abundant than iridium.2• TADF emitters, on the other hand, aremetal-free molecules. A special molecu-lar design principle evens out the ener-


Table 1. The major differences among the main emission principles (FLUO, PHOS, and TADF) used in OLEDs are shown in terms of

performance and features.

Performance Key feature

FLUO 25% of the energy can be Generally used for blue and often green pixels.used for light generation Focus on efficient emission from the S1 to S0 level

to use singlet exciton emission.

PHOS 100% of the energy can be Generally used for red pixels and in some cases alsoused for light generation in green pixels. Blue phosphorescent emitters do not

show enough stability.Heavy-metal-based materials that feature large spin-orbit coupling to harvest both singlet and triplet excitons. Metals can be iridium, platinum, or osmium,for example.

TADF 100% of the energy can be Comparable efficiencies to PHOS but a higher used for light generation stability is expected.

Materials feature carefully adjusted energy levels S1and T1, to allow for a small ΔE(S-T) to harvest bothsinglet and triplet excitons.

Fig. 2: The display resolution (in pixels per in. or ppi) and average power consumption (inwatts) of several generations of Samsung Galaxy smartphones featuring OLED displays showsthat significant improvement correlates to the use of new generations of materials. (Credit: Display power management data and ppi are from the DisplayMate article series on the Samsung Galaxy smartphones. Displaymate.com/mobile.html.)


http://Displaymate.com/mobile.html

getic differences that normally are foundbetween singlets and triplets. In fact, theenergetic differences are so small that thethermal energy at normal environmentaltemperatures is enough to help excitonsmove from the triplet to the singlet state,where they can then be transformed tovisible light. Using this process, everyexciton in the device can be used to emitlight, which corresponds to 100% inter-nal quantum efficiency and is compara-ble to phosphorescent emitters.

Electroluminescence mechanisms aside,FLUO, PHOS, and TADF emitters are synthe-sized using well-established chemical tech-niques similar to those employed for thelarge-scale production of pharmaceuticalssuch as aspirin, as well as for fertilizers andplastics.

Closing the Blue Gap in Displays Aside from sustainability concerns, whichstem from the fact that extremely rare ele-ments such as iridium are required to makePHOS materials, there is also a technical issuethat favors TADF over PHOS materials: theblue gap, which denotes the current trade-offbetween the efficiency and the stability ofblue emitters. Figure 2 indicates that as oftoday, blue pixels of commercial productscontain FLUO materials, even though they areless efficient. The reason for this is that – even

after almost 20 years of industrial and aca-demic research in the field of PHOS emitters– science has failed to produce a blue PHOSmaterial that combines efficiency, stability,and a proper color point. If a blue emitter

were to show high efficiency and long life-time, as TADF is promising to do, this wouldcreate great opportunities to develop betterproducts with even lower power consumptionand better resolution. To date, it has beendemonstrated that TADF emitters can deliveran excellent blue color point, while methodsto achieve improved efficiency and stabilityare still being developed.

Figures 4 and 5 indicate the impact of theblue gap in existing blue fluorescent emitters.All OLED displays currently require rela-tively large blue pixel areas to reach enoughbrightness in the display. In smartphones, withred, green, and blue pixels, the blue pixelmakes up 52% of the total area. Having TADFor PHOS pixels with a much higher efficiencywould enable the display manufacturers tomake smaller blue pixels to yield the sameamount of light, which would pave the wayagain to increased resolution. Apart from abetter display, customers would also benefitfrom a longer battery life for their mobiledevice. Battery life is closely connected to thepower consumption of the display.

OLED TVs have a complex stack architec-ture, essentially making white light from red,green, and blue emitting layers and then usingcolor filters to separate the colors again for the



Fig. 3: Emission principles used in OLEDs include: fluorescence (FLUO), which often relatesto the first emitter material generation; phosphorescence (PHOS), which is the second materialgeneration; and TADF, which marks the latest conceptual development.

Fig. 4: This simplified OLED structure is the type generally used in smartphone displays. The light emitted by the blue, red, and green pixels directly generates the displayed image. Currently, the blue pixel area is on the order of 52% of the total display area.


different pixels. Having a more efficient blue,which again makes up about 50% of the dis-play area, would effectively reduce the powerconsumption of the TV by switching to a lesscomplex stack design (such as in Fig. 4),which could potentially reduce manufacturingcosts.

TADF Is Catching Up QuicklyConceptually, donor and acceptor groups suchas the ones shown in Fig. 6 can be connectedin many different ways, as is illustrated in Fig. 7, which provides several recent exam-ples for actual TADF molecules.

During the last two years we have wit-nessed major improvements in TADF materi-als, which now can surpass (blue) or reachsimilar performance (red and green) as con-

ventional PHOS materials in terms of colorpoint, efficiency, and stability. A main drivingforce behind this progress was the develop-ment of suitable screening algorithms formolecular design, which make use of densityfunctional theory (DFT) calculations (Fig. 6). These computational tools drastically increasedthe efficiency of material development by allowing only promising, highly efficient TADF

materials to be synthesized. This leads toextremely short material development cycleswith a very steep learning curve per cycle.

Results based on this development approach were recently published by our team at CYNORA. We reported several blue materials, among them a blue emitter reaching 14%external quantum efficiency (EQE) at 500 nitsand a lifetime to 80% of the initial luminance


Fig. 5: This simplified OLED structure is the type commonly used in TV displays. For such applications, complex architectures are used to createwhite light, including color filters to create the image. Currently, the surface area of blue pixels is on the order of more than 50%.

(b)

(c)(a)

Fig. 6: Density functional theory (DFT) calculations are one cornerstone of the devel-opment of TADF materials (a). It is possibleto use the computational prognosis, based onempirical results, as a pre-screening tool toavoid bad TADF emitters. This methodologydrastically accelerates material development.Conceptually, TADF molecules consist ofdonors and acceptors covalently bonded (b).Apart from the prediction of TADF properties,molecular issues can also be seen in DFT calculations. Weak bonds, for example, can beidentified by calculating the bond dissociationenergy (c).


(LT 80) of 420 h at 500 nits starting lumi-nance.13 This material featured an emissionmaximum below 480 nm. Properties of arecently developed material are shown inTable 2 and Figs. 8 and 9. The electro-opticJVL characteristics of this material in a simpledevice architecture, using the literature-knownhost mCBP14 (short for 4,40-bis(3-methyl-carbazol-9- yl)-2,20-biphenyl), demonstrateabout 4.2 volts at 500 nits. The so-called blueindex, which can be calculated by dividing thecurrent efficiency in cd A–1 and the CIEycolor coordinate (for CIE coordinates, see Fig. 10), approaches 80 at 500 nits in a bottom-emitting device.

Ir(dmp)3, short for iridium (III) tris[3- (2,6-dimethylphenyl)-7-methylimidazo[1,2-f]phenanthridine], currently represents (in the literature) the most stable blue iridium emitterwith a relatively blue color point (CIE 0.15 /0.31, see Fig. 10 for definition) and decentefficiency of 8% EQE at 1,000-nits luminancein a conventional OLED architecture. In arecent study by Forrest and co-workers,15 thebasic performance was reported in the samehost used to obtain the data shown in Table 2.

The LT80 at 500 nits was estimated from thevalues given in the publication. Even using asimple, non-optimized screening architectureand normal R&D-grade purity, the stabilityLT80 at this starting luminance is on the orderof 100 hours, which is in the range of the bestphosphorescent materials when also consider-ing the better color and the higher efficiency15

(Table 2). Considering that phosphorescentmaterials have been under investigation since1997,4 while TADF has been studied only



Table 2. This table shows the deviceperformance of the CYNORA material (TADF) vs. Ir(dmp)3,

currently the most stable and efficientblue phosphorescent emitter,15 in

13 w-% mCBP (PHOS).

CIE EQE LT80(1000 nits) (1000 nits) (500 nits)

TADF (0.17, 0.27) 12% 94

PHOS (0.16, 0.31) 8% ca. 100

Fig. 8: Above is a comparison between the photoluminescence (PL) of a mid-blue TADF emitterand its electroluminescence (EL) performance in a bottom-emitting OLED.

Fig. 7: These selected blue TADF emitterswere recently published by researchers LianDuan, Chihaya Adachi, and Jun Yeob Lee.10-12


since 2011,6 these results demonstrate a significant development curve for TADF.

What to Expect from TADF Technology in the FutureBy 2015, CYNORA and others7 had established that it was possible to realize a favorabledeep-blue color point with TADF material

technology. Recently, great progress towardmore stable blue TADF devices has beenmade, demonstrating materials with emissionbelow 480 nm, 14% EQE, and lifetime valuesof LT80 at 420 hours (measured at 500 nitsbrightness).13 Within a relatively short periodof R&D, TADF emitters have now reached aperformance similar to PHOS emitters with ablue color point. The cornerstone of these suc-cesses was a fast translation of quantum-chemical predictions from DFT-calculationsinto material design and a continuousimprovement of the underlying theory, whichled to improved materials in each learningcycle. Following this trend, blue TADF tech-nology should reach market readiness by the end of 2017, according to CYNORA’s roadmap.

Further improvement can be expectedthrough the realization of more sophisticatedstack architectures. For example, mCBP, acomponent used in the aforementioned early-stage devices with CYNORA’s material, isknown to have several stability issues, poten-tially limiting the stability of these OLEDs.16

This indicates that using other, more stablehosts will lead to even longer lifetimes.

Nevertheless, it is also clear that the basicstability of both the materials and the stackarchitectures still need to be improved fundamentally. Looking back at a very steeplearning curve displayed by research-drivencompanies such as CYNORA, as well as greatacademic progress,10,17,18 this necessaryadvancement seems achievable in a short

amount of time. TADF will soon contribute tothe next material-driven advancement of theOLED industry, making OLEDs ready foreven more applications soon.

References 1C. W. Tang, S. Van Slyke, “Organic electro-luminescent diodes,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 51, 913(1987).2D. Volz, et al., “From iridium and platinumto copper and carbon: new avenues for moresustainability in organic light-emittingdiodes,” Green Chem. 17, 1988–2011 (2015).3S. Van Slyke, C. H. Chen, C. W. Tang,“Organic electroluminescent devices withimproved stability,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 69, 2160(1996).4M. A. Baldo, et al., “Highly efficient phospho-rescent emission from organic electrolumines-cent devices,” Nature 395, 151–154 (1998).5M. A. Baldo, S. Lamansky, P. E. Burrows, M. E. Thompson, S. R. Forrest, “Very high-efficiency green organic light-emittingdevices based on electrophosphorescence,”Appl. Phys. Lett. 75, 4 (1999).6A. Endo, et al., “Efficient up-conversion oftriplet excitons into a singlet state and itsapplication for organic light emitting diodes,”Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 083302 (2011).7L. Bergmann, D. M. Zink, S. Bräse, T. Bau-mann, D. Volz, “Metal–Organic and OrganicTADF-Materials: Status, Challenges andCharacterization,” Top. Curr. Chem. 374, 22(2016). (continued on page 44)


Fig. 9: Above is shown the performance of a recent deep-blue TADF OLED material, with voltage at left and luminance at right.

Fig. 10: The color of OLEDs is measured inthe CIE 1931 color coordinate system. To satisfy the color expectations of the displayindustry, CIEy values below 0.20 – ideallyeven around CIEy 0.10 – are required. Withcurrent TADF materials, CIEy values in theorder of 0.15 can be reached.


The popular notion of a gifted scientist isoften that of a driven individual toiling awayin some laboratory through the dark hours ofthe night. And while such efforts may describemany of this year’s winners at certain pointsduring their lives, it’s important to note thatthey rarely worked alone. The 2017 Honorsand Awards recipients point to the synergiesthey experienced as members of a team, or asattendees at a conference such as DisplayWeek, as a driving force for their research. Hiroyuki Ohshima, winner of this year’s

Braun Prize, began his life’s work in TFTLCDs as part of a team that was tasked by itsemployer to develop something new – a broaddirective that would have been daunting iftaken on alone. Jan Rajchman Prize winnerShui-Chih Alan Lien remembers discovering

the contagious excitement generated byresearchers presenting at Display Week – theirzeal made him work harder. And when he andhis co-workers finally solved a tough viewingangle problem, he was “happy and proud to bepart of the team that developed this excitingand useful technology.” Martin S. Banks, winner of the Otto Schade Prize, was alreadya successful vision-science academic when hefound a new direction after meeting SIDresearchers and learning how his expertisecould inform display research. Slottow-Owakiwinner Deng-Ke Yang is a gifted teacher (aswell as researcher) who through his mentoringhas sent many highly skilled display profes-sionals into the global workplace. Kenneth I.Werner, who has been named recipient of thisyear’s Lewis and Beatrice Winner Award, dis-covered that as much as he gave to the Societyfor Information Display through participatingin its events and publications, he got backthrough enrichment to both his personal and

SID Recognizes Outstanding Members of the Display CommunityThis year’s winners of the Society for Information Display’s Honors and Awards includeHiroyuki Ohshima, who will receive the Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize for his contributions toLTPS technology and the mobile-display industry; Shui-Chih Alan Lien, who has earned theJan Rajchman Prize for his contributions to LCD science and technology; Martin S. Banks,who will receive the Otto Schade Prize for his research into the causes of viewer discomfortand misperceptions in depth and motion; Deng-Ke Yang, who has earned the Slottow-OwakiPrize for his contributions to the education of students and professionals in the field of liquid-crystal displays; Kenneth I. Werner, who will receive the Lewis and Beatrice Winner Awardfor his services as editor, teacher, technologist, and SID proponent; and Yi-Pai Huang, whowill receive the inaugural Peter Brody Prize for his contributions to the development of wide-view MVA-pixel technology and field-sequential-color driving methodology.

by Jenny Donelan

Jenny Donelan is the editor in chief of Information Display Magazine. She can bereached at [email protected].


2017 Honors and Awards

The 2017 winners will be honored at the SID Honors & Awards Banquet, which takes place at 8:00 pm,Monday evening, May 22, 2017,during Display Week at the Hotel Indigo in Los Angeles. Tickets cost $100 and must be purchased in advance – they will not be available on site.

Visit www.displayweek.orgfor more information.

ID Donelan H&A p22-27_Layout 1 3/6/2017 2:03 PM Page 22


http://www.displayweek.org

professional life. The winner of this year’sPeter Brody Prize, Yi-Pai Huang, was alsochanged by visiting a SID symposium, wherehe was sparked by the excitement of theresearchers there.

It is inspiring to see the humility withwhich these great scientists offer credit to the colleagues and mentors who helped themalong the way. Please join us in congratulatingthis year’s award winners. Their collaborativeefforts have contributed to a stronger society,and thus to a stronger display industry.

2017 Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize This award is presented for an outstandingtechnical achievement in, or contribution to,display technology.Hiroyuki Ohshima, SID fellow and CTO

of Japan Research Center for Huawei,receives this year’s Braun Prize “for his out-standing contributions to the research anddevelopment of LTPS technology and hisleadership in the mobile-display industry.”

After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Ohshima’s first job was working onsemiconductors in the R&D department atSeiko Epson. In the early 1980s, the companyrelocated most of Ohshima’s colleagues to anew semiconductor fab, leaving Ohshima anda few other researchers behind with instruc-tions to leverage their semiconductor experi-ence toward developing new technologies.Ohshima’s team eventually decided to focuson thin-film transistor (TFT) LCDs becausethey thought the technology had potential forcreating new flat-panel displays. That thoughtwas novel: At the time, notes Ohshima, fewpeople were aware of TFTs or their possibleapplication to LCDs. “This was the start ofmy long journey with TFT-LCDs as my lifework,” he says.

As part of that journey, Ohshima helpeddevelop low-temperature polycrystalline-silicon (LTPS) TFT technology. He alsohelped commercialize it for mobile displays,making possible the mobile device era inwhich we live today.

According to Tatsuo Uchida, SID fellowand professor emeritus at Tohoku University,“Mr. Ohshima was engaged in the researchand development of LTPS TFT from a veryearly time, when it was still unexplored. Hesolved many problems relating to LTPS TFTfor LCD drivers and peripheral circuits, andthe resulting technology is now used for vari-ous high-definition active-matrix LCDs and

OLEDs. Without his outstanding achieve-ments, current high-resolution displays wouldnot have been realized.”

Ohshima notes that considerable challengesstill exist for LTPS technology. “I call LTPS‘giant microelectronics,’ he says, explaining that the technology integrates an enormousamount of micro devices onto “giant” glasssubstrates. “LTPS technology is so compli-cated by nature, and requires great technicalmaturity and careful alignment between prod-uct design and manufacturing processes.”These considerations make it challenging toimplement LTPS on a mass production basis.However, recent market trends require LTPSsolutions for both LCD and OLED applica-tions. This means that more companies inter-ested in implementing LTPS are entering themarket, and these companies represent newresearch and career opportunities for the nextgeneration of display scientists.

When asked if he has advice for that nextwave of display scientists, Ohshima says,“Looking back in history, we should remindourselves that many new display technologieshave been proposed with successful demon-strators, but eventually failed in industrializa-tion and/or business.” In order to avoid suchfailures, he recommends that displays be con-sidered not by themselves but in relation to avariety of aspects, including supply chainsboth upstream and downstream, infrastruc-tures, material supplies, manufacturing equip-ment, design tools, and global market trends.

2017 Jan Rajchman PrizeThis award is presented for an outstandingscientific or technical achievement in, or con-tribution to, research on flat-panel displays.Shui-Chih Alan Lien, SID fellow and

CTO of China Star Optoelectronics (CSOT),receives the Jan Rajchman Prize “for his out-standing contributions to LCD science andtechnology, especially for the development ofmulti-domain VA LCDs, extended Jonesmatrix, and 110-in. curved televisions.”

Shui-Chih Alan Lien’s career has beenmarked by a wide range of achievementswithin the field of liquid-crystal displays. He was instrumental to the development ofmulti-domain vertical alignment (VA) LCDs,which helped create LC displays with widerviewing angles. He developed the extendedJones matrix, which calculates polarizationchanges through each layer of an LCD andthe LCD’s optics for the oblique incidence oflight. And he led an R&D team at CSOT todevelop the world’s first 110-in., ultra-high-definition TFT-LCD panel with multipletouch and 3D functionality. (That productwon a Display of the Year Silver Award fromSID.) These are just three of the break-throughs that Lien has helped bring aboutduring a long career that has included posi-tions at Optical Imaging Systems, IBM,AUO, and TCL, in addition to CSOT.

Lien says he was lucky because the LCDindustry was just beginning while he wasworking on his Ph.D. degree in physics at theUniversity of Minnesota. “I was fortunatelyable to find a job in the field of TFT-LCDsafter finishing my degree. I liked the technol-ogy and have continued to work with itthroughout my career.”

In 1987, Lien joined the IBM T. J. WatsonResearch Center. By that time, “the LCDindustry was blooming,” he says, adding thatnarrow viewing angle issues were a majorchallenge for LCDs. “It was an exciting timeto join the SID symposium each year,” hesays, “since a variety of multi-domain tech-nologies were being proposed and demon-strated to solve the viewing angle problem. I really enjoyed discussing these topics withcolleagues working in the same field – it stimulated many new ideas. Because of theexciting and hard work of engineers and scientists, the narrow viewing angle problemof TFT-LCD was solved.” He describes thatbreakthrough as one of the most important inhis career. “I am very happy and proud to be


Hiroyuki Ohshima

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part of the team that developed this excitingand useful technology.”

Now the LCD industry is facing a challengefrom AMOLEDs, says Lien, especially forsmall- and medium-sized panels. AMOLEDhas advantages in terms of response time,flexibility, and formability. “The LCD indus-try needs to overcome these three disadvan-tages in order to compete with AMOLED forthe small and medium panel.” According tohis associates, it is typical of Lien that he con-siders the next challenge in terms of the bigpicture. Says Hidefumi Yoshida, researchdirector at Sharp, “Dr. Lien has great leader-ship in both development and commercialfields.”

2017 Otto Schade PrizeThe Otto Schade Prize is awarded for out-standing scientific or technical achievementin, or contribution to, the advancement offunctional performance and/or image qualityof information displays.Martin S. Banks, professor of optometry

and vision science at UC Berkeley, receivesthe Otto Schade Prize “for his research intothe causes of viewer discomfort and misper-ceptions in depth and motion and the creationof volumetric technology to mitigate theseeffects.”

At first glance, Martin Banks’ educationalpath would not seem likely to lead to a careerin vision science and optometry and toresearch in stereoscopic user discomfort andmisperception that has changed the way dis-

plays are designed. As an undergraduate,Banks majored in psychology and minored inphysics. After teaching in Germany for a year, he earned a master’s degree in experimentalpsychology, and then a Ph.D. in developmen-tal psychology at the University of Minnesota.

“I always had an interest in the harder sideof psychology and that got me interested inperception,” says Banks. His early work wasin hearing research, but he switched to devel-opmental psychology, at the time a rapidlygrowing field. Then he became interested inadult vision, and managed to get himselfassigned to teach a binocular vision class. “I spent a summer learning as much as I couldabout the field so that I’d be able to teachcompetently when the class convened,” saysBanks. Apparently, he was successful: “I really liked the topic and that got me intostereoscopy. “

The next career step – to displays – cameabout as a result of a couple of fortuitousevents: First, Banks was invited to speakabout vision science to a group of engineers at an SID meeting in Southern California. “I realized at the time how these folks werestarving for more information about the visualsystem,” says Banks. Second, he met KurtAkeley, one of the founders of Silicon Graph-ics, and together they began exploring theinterfaces of computer science, vision science,and display engineering. That research gener-ated a great deal of interest from the displaycommunity, and Banks has been doing someform of it ever since.

“I’ve read several papers by Marty duringthe years and have been very impressed by hisgreat analytic methods and knowledge aboutthe visual system and applications related todisplays,” says Adi Abileah, display consult-ant and 2012 Otto Schade Prize winner.“Specifically and most recently, his modelsabout vergence and accommodation conflicts,which cause discomfort and nausea in stereo-scopic displays, are of great interest. His over-all contribution to the understanding of thehuman vision system is an asset to the displayindustry.”

According to Banks, the challenges thatvision science researchers are working onright now include color, high dynamic range,and especially the reproduction of focus cues(blur and accommodation) with high fidelity.Progress in vision science has been verysteady, says Banks. “But display engineershave become increasingly interested in whatvision scientists have to tell them. And manyvision scientists have become increasinglyinterested in working with display engineers.The level of interaction between these twofields is so much greater now than it was adecade ago.”

2017 Slottow-Owaki PrizeThe Slottow-Owaki Prize is awarded for outstanding contributions to the educationand training of students and professionals inthe field of information displays.Deng-Ke Yang, SID fellow and professor at

Kent State University, receives the Slottow-Owaki Prize “for his contributions to the education and training of students and profes-sionals in the field of liquid-crystal displays.”

Deng-Ke Yang’s major technical achieve-ments are in the areas of bistable cholestericreflective displays and polymer stabilizedcholesteric texture light shutters. These scien-tific contributions are documented in twobooks, five book chapters, more than 120 pub-lications, and 21 issued and pending patents.

But it is his work as an educator and mentorthat has earned him the 2017 Slottow-OwakiPrize. “I have known Professor Yang for over20 years and I am proud to say I am one of hismany students at the Liquid Crystal Institute(LCI) at Kent State University,” says Ray Ma,director of flexible OLED R&D at UniversalDisplay Corporation. “Professor Yang takespride in his work as a teacher and regardsteaching as one of the highest honors,” Macontinues. “Even today, I still keep my notes



Shui-Chih Alan Lien

Martin S. Banks


from his class in my office and will referencethem once a while.”

Over the years, Yang has advised more thana dozen graduate students, many of whom arenow working in companies such as 3M,Apple, Corning, Kodak, Tianma, and UDC.“They are all playing important roles in thedisplay industry because of the solid trainingthey received from LCI under the guidance ofProfessor Yang,” says Ma.

Yang also teaches classes at various univer-sities around the world. He has authored twobooks with Shin-Tson Wu, Reflective LiquidCrystal Displays and Fundamentals of LiquidCrystal Devices. Both are extremely popularreferences for students and professionals inthe field of liquid-crystal displays the worldover.

Yang became interested in the study of liquid crystals when he entered graduateschool 33 years ago. “I realized that liquidcrystals are interesting in terms of fundamen-tal science and are also important for practicalapplications. Furthermore it does not costmuch to do liquid-crystal research!” Yangcontinues to research cholesteric liquid-crystaldevices. The biggest challenge for this tech-nology, he says, is to develop video-rate, high-image-quality transflective displays thatcan be used everywhere, from dim indoorlighting to bright sunny outdoor conditions.

2017 Lewis and Beatrice Winner AwardThe Lewis and Beatrice Winner Award forDistinguished Service is awarded to a Societymember for exceptional and sustained serviceto SID.Kenneth I. Werner, journalist, analyst, con-

sultant, and principal of Nutmeg Consultants,receives the Lewis and Beatrice WinnerAward “for his dedicated services as editor,

author, teacher, technologist, and, most impor-tantly, one of the strongest proponents of SID.”

Ken Werner’s connections to SID date backto a time when he was managing editor of IEEE Spectrum and happened to edit an article on display technology by Larry Tannas,founder of Tannas Electronic Displays and apast president of SID. Two years later, whenthe Society needed an editor for this maga-zine, Tannas remembered Werner’s work and


Deng-Ke Yang Kenneth I. Werner

Masaki Hasegawa “for his invention of decom-position-type photoalignment used in IPS and FFSLCDs to achieve a high contrast ratio and lowpower consumption.”

Dr. Hasegawa is a manager of Merck Perform-ance Materials Ltd. He earned his Ph.D. degree inengineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Jang Hyuk (Jeremy) Kwon “for his pioneeringresearch on OLED displays, especially on the top-emission device architecture in AMOLED displays.”

Dr. Kwon is a professor at Kyung Hee Univer-sity. He has a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology(KAIST).

Raymond Kwong “for his pioneering research on and commercialization of high-efficiency andhigh-stability phosphorescent OLED materials and devices.”

Dr. Kwong is currently the director of Universal Display Corporation HK Ltd. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the Univ. of Southern California.

Kenichiro Masaoka “for his leading contributionsto the research and development of a wide-color-gamut UHD-TV display system and gamut-areametrology.”

Dr. Masaoka is a principal research engineerwith the Advanced Television Systems ResearchDivision, NHK Science and Technology Research

Laboratories. He received his Ph.D. in engineering from the TokyoInstitute of Technology.

2017 SID Special Recognition AwardsPresented to members of the technical, scientific, and business community (not necessarily SID members)

for distinguished and valued contributions to the information-display field.


hired him for Information Display. Werner stayed at the magazine from 1987 to 2005,bringing the magazine to what was universallyrecognized as a new standard of excellence.“During Ken’s time with Information Display,the magazine became truly professional,” saysTannas.

After his stint with Information Display,Werner continued to work in the displayindustry, as he does to this day. Years earlier,after leaving IEEE Spectrum, he had foundedNutmeg Consultants, which specializes in

display industry manufacturing, technology,and applications, including mobile devicesand television. He continues to run Nutmeg Consultants, and is also a senior analyst fordisplay research firm MEKO, Ltd.; a foundingco-editor of MEKO’s Display Daily; and aregular contributor to HDTVexpert.com

Werner has also stayed involved with SID,serving as program chair or co-chair for several of the Los Angeles chapter’s one-dayconferences – a long-running and very suc-cessful series.

He has also supported various display activ-ities in Brazil, culminating with the formationof the Latin American Chapter. “Ken has beena key contributor to Latin Display over theyears,” wrote Alaide, Victor, and Carlos Mam-mana (Latin America Chapter chair, director,and member, respectively) in a statement recommending Werner for the award. “Overmany years, Ken not only disseminatedknowledge about displays but championed theSID organization, explaining its goals andhelping to foster the creation of the LatinAmerican Chapter for SID. He continues tomotivate the industry to increased participa-tion in SID activities.”

Werner’s background is not that of a typicalwordsmith. He has a degree in physics andstarted out as an engineer at RCA. “I foundthat I enjoyed the first six months of eachproject when I was trying to figure out which way was up, and then found the next 18months of wrapping up the details to be horribly tedious,” says Werner. “So I lookedfor an area where I could use my technicalexpertise as a generalist, rather than a hyper-specialist.” This led him to publishing, andeventually, to SID.

Werner says, “I received great satisfactionfrom covering SID’s major conferences forInformation Display, which gave me theopportunity to make many friends in the dis-play industry and to view display technologyand manufacturing around the world closeup.” He also enjoyed running the promotionand press relations program for Display Week,though he is quick to point out that the personwho did most of the work of keeping the presshappy was his friend and colleague DianMecca.

When asked about the significance of theaward to his career, Werner replies: “I didn'tdo these things in order to win an award, evenone as prestigious as the Lewis and BeatriceWinner Award. I did them because peopleasked me. And by simply saying ‘yes,’ Iwound up greatly enriching my professionaland personal life. This award is icing on thecake.”

2017 Peter Brody Prize The Peter Brody Prize (new this year) isawarded to honor outstanding contributionsof young researchers (under age 40) who havemade major-impact technical contributions tothe developments of active matrix addressed displays in one or more of the following areas:



Toshiaki Arai “for hisdistinguished contribu-tions to high-reliabilityhigh-performance oxide-TFT technology forAMOLED displays.”

Dr. Arai is a chief tech-nologist at JOLED Inc. He received hisPh.D. degree from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology.

Hyun Jae Kim “for hisoriginal contributions toLTPS TFTs using excimer-laser annealing and forimplementing the anneal-ing process into the com-mercial production of

LTPS TFT-LCDs and AMOLED displays.”Dr. Kim is a professor in the School of

Electrical and Electronic Engineering atYonsei University in Seoul, Korea. Hereceived his Ph.D. degree in materials science and engineering from ColumbiaUniversity.

Sin-Doo Lee “for his out-standing contributions tofast-switching and wide-view LCD technologies,ranging from verticallyaligned nematic to defect-free ferroelectric modes.”

Dr. Lee is a professor in the School ofElectrical Engineering of Seoul NationalUniversity. He received his Ph.D. degree in liquid-crystal physics from Brandeis University.

Sang-Hee Ko Park “forher development of thefirst AMOLED displaywith oxide TFTs.”

Dr. Park is a professorat the Korean AdvancedInstitute of Science and

Technology. She earned a Ph.D. in chemistryfrom the University of Pittsburgh.

2017 SID Fellow AwardsThe grade of Fellow is conferred annually upon SID members of outstanding

qualifications and experience as scientists or engineers whose significant contributions to the field of information display have been widely recognized.

Qun (Frank) Yan “for his outstandingcontributions to plasma displays, espe-cially for inventing and developing thecalcium magnesium oxide protectivelayer for the mass production of high-luminous-efficacy PDPs.”

Dr. Yan is a distinguished professorat Fuzhou University and chief technology advisor forChanghong Electric Group Co., Ltd. He received hisPh.D. in physics from Vanderbilt University.


http://HDTVexpert.com

• Thin film transistor devices• Active matrix addressing techniques• Active matrix device manufacturing• Active matrix display media• Active matrix display enabling components

Yi-Pai Huang, professor and associate deanof R&D at National Chiao-Tung University,earns the inaugural Peter Brody Prize “for hisinnovative contributions to the developmentof wide-view MVA-pixel technology and theinvention of the field-sequential-color drivingmethod to achieve imperceptible colorbreakup.”An appreciation for art and imagery led

Yi-Pai Huang to a career in displays. “Myfather is a photographer, so I enjoyed seeingbeautiful pictures when I was a kid,” saysHuang. While at graduate school at NationalChiao-Tung University, he had the chance tovisit Professor Han-Ping Shieh (a display pioneer in his own right and winner of a Slottow-Owaki Prize). There in Shieh’s lab,he saw many new TFT-LCD technologiespowering displays with beautiful imagery.“Therefore, I decided to join Shieh’s group to do research for improving the optics andpicture quality of displays and TFT-LCDs,”says Huang.He went on to develop advanced-MVA

TFT-LCD for reduced color washout, invent astencil-FSC driving method to achieve imper-ceptible color break-up, and implement anLC-lens array for various 3D applications. He has published 60 journal papers, 133 conference papers, and 3 book chapters. Heholds 98 issued patents.“Huang is an outstanding scientist who has

made tremendous accomplishments at ayoung age,” says Fan Luo, retired CTO forAUO, who worked with Huang at AUO. “Professor Huang has also been very active in

SID activities,serving aschair of theTaipei Chapterand programchair for thetechnical symposium.”Huang notes

that growingup, he wasdrawn to sportsas well as science. Hemight have

become an athlete or a physical educationteacher, he says, had his mom not steered himtoward science when he was 18 and applyingto undergraduate programs. He credits SID with providing a great deal

of inspiration early on. “I joined my first SIDsymposium in 2001 and saw many researchersengrossed in display technology and excitedlyreporting their most innovative achievementsin the symposium,” he says. “That reallyencouraged me to focus more on displayresearch.” In 2009, Huang became the officerof SID’s Taipei chapter and the program committee member of SID. He says he haslearned a great deal from senior scientists inthis society, in terms of both leadership andtechnology. “I really have to give my sincereappreciation to SID,” he says, “and especiallyto my senior mentors, Professor Han-PingShieh, Professor Shin-Tson Wu, Dr. Fan Luo,and Dr. John Chen.”When asked what advice he might give to

young researchers starting out, Huang offeredthis: “Young people have ‘fresh’ brains, so they

shouldn't be bounded by old technology. Thedisplays of the future could be some arbitrarytype – we could have images floating in theair, or even imaging directly into the brain. I would like to encourage young people to usetheir imaginations to develop a future type ofdisplay in their minds, and then try to realizeit solidly, because your achievement willnever be greater than your dream.” n


The 2017 Honors andAwards Committee

members are:

Shin-Tson Wu, ChairPaul Drzaic

Min-Koo HanIngrid Heynderickx

Chris KingFan Luo

Haruhiko OkumuraJun Souk

Ching TangAndrew Watson

Larry Weber

Yi-Pai Huang

Display Week 2017Innovation Zone (I-Zone)

May 23–25, 2017Sponsored by E InkThe prototypes on display inthe Innovation Zone at DisplayWeek 2017 will be among themost exciting things you see at thisyear’s show. These exhibits werechosen by the Society for InformationDisplay’s I-Zone Committee for theirnovelty, quality, and potential toenhance and even transform the dis-play industry. Programmable shoes,interactive holograms, the latesthead-up displays, and much morewill not only fire your imagination,but provide an advance look at manyof the commercial products you’ll beusing a few years from now.SID created the I-Zone as a forum forlive demonstrations of emerginginformation-display technologies. This special exhibit offers researchers space to demonstrate their proto-types or other hardware demos dur-ing Display Week, and encouragesparticipation by small companies,startups, universities, governmentlabs, and independent research labs.Don’t miss the 2017 I-Zone, takingplace on the show floor at DisplayWeek, May 23–25.

I-Zone 2016 Best Prototype Award Winner:

nVerpix

ID Donelan H&A p22-27_Layout 1 3/6/2017 2:40 PM Page 27

There were lots of displays at the latestConsumer Electronics Show, held January 4–8, 2017, in Las Vegas, but only in a few cases were developments in display technology front and center. More frequently, displayswere important as enabling components inlarger systems, notably automotive human-machine interfaces (HMIs), advanced driverassistance systems (ADAS), and autonomousvehicles. But leaving the self-balancingmotorcycles, etc. aside, we will focus on the11 display technologies and display-centricproducts (including one exhibit) that were thebest in their own right, and we’ll define “best”as we go along.

1. Best Product That Isn’t What ItSays It Is

Samsung introduced its new “QLED” TVtechnology, although it wasn’t based on whatthe technical community would call quantumdot light-emitting diode (QLED). We’d betterget used to it, though. When Samsung’s

marketing army decides to call an apple anorange, it’s going to be an orange. (That’swhat happened when, a few years back, Samsung decided to call an LCD-TV with an LED edge-light an “LED TV.” And so itremains to this day.)Today, Samsung is making very good 4K

quantum-dot TVs under the label S-UHD. ButSamsung representatives have said the labelhasn’t been very exciting or informative forconsumers, and that brings us to QLED. In 2016, Samsung acquired the assets of

quantum-dot company QD Vision. QD Visionhad developed significant intellectual propertyaround QLED technology – true QLED tech-nology – and Samsung also acquired rights tothe “QLED” name.True QLED refers to a structure that resem-

bles an organic light-emitting diode (OLED)structure, but with the organic emitting layerof OLED replaced with quantum dots (QDs).While QDs in current TVs are excited by photons, the QDs in QLED are excited by anelectric field. This very different approachwill take years of additional developmentbefore it appears in commercial TV sets, butmany industry-watchers regard it as possiblythe best TV display technology under devel-opment today.This is not the technology in Samsung’s

“QLED” TV sets. These sets have the conven-tional quantum-dot structure, but the dots –made by Nanosys – are constructed differ-ently from other QDs, including the QDs in

Samsung’s 2016 S-UHD TV sets. The setsshowed in Samsung’s booth at CES lookedvery good, but we will need to compare testresults to see if they are better than competingsets. In Samsung’s CES press conference,

Joe Stinziano, executive vice president forSamsung Electronics America, said the QLED sets cover “nearly all of the DCI color space,” incorporate high dynamic range(HDR), and generate a peak white luminanceof 1,500 to 2,000 nits. The panel, he said, isoptimized for the new QDs, which presum-ably means the matrix color filter is tuned forthe wavelengths and widths of the QD peaks.The QLED set adapts to room illumination,said Stinziano; the panel connects to the boxvia optical cable, and the set mounts on thewall, for those who opt for wall-mounting,with virtually no gap. Samsung showed 65-in. and 88-in. examples on the show floor. TheQLED line, which was introduced at the start of this year’s show, won a ConsumerTechnology Association (CTA) InnovationAward. Samsung’s announced strategy is to skip

OLED technology completely and jumpdirectly to true QLED. But, when it does,what will Samsung call it? Samsung is alreadytrying to resolve the issue by calling the current photoluminescent QD technology“photoluminescent QLED,” and using “electroluminescent QLED” for the QLEDtechnology to come.

The 11 Best Display-Related Finds at CES 2017The most exciting near- and medium-term developments seen at the Consumer ElectronicsShow in Las Vegas revolved around quantum dots. And there were other surprises.

by Ken Werner

Ken Werner is principal of Nutmeg Consult-ants, specializing in the display industry, manufacturing, technology, and applications,including mobile devices and television. Heconsults for attorneys, investment analysts,and companies re-positioning themselveswithin the display industry or using displaysin their products. You can reach him at [email protected].


show review

ID Werner p28-33_Layout 1 3/4/2017 11:59 AM Page 28


2. Best Real QLED and Air-StableQuantum-Dot TechnologyDemonstrations

Samsung’s QD supplier Nanosys demon-strated a true QLED in its suite in the West-gate Hotel. The demo consisted of four brightblue pixels (Fig. 1), indicating that 1) Nanosyscan make them, and 2) we’re a long way froma true QLED TV set, confirming a widely heldbelief in the field. Nanosys gave a primitive, lab-bench style

demo of air-stable quantum dots behindclosed doors last May at SID’s Display Week.The company’s air-stable demo in its CESsuite this year was far more sophisticated thanwhat it showed last May. (Nanosys now callsthe technology “ambient processable,” whichis accurate but hard to wrap your tonguearound.) The demo showed what is widelycalled a “filter” because the intent is for it toreplace the matrix color filter in an LCD, eventhough it isn’t a filter in the conventionalsense.Jeff Yurek, Nanosys director of marketing

and investor relations, said the materialsissues for the air-stable QDs have beensolved. Photolithography produces a cleanpattern, which was verified by looking at thesample, although the pixel density was limitedby the lab-level lithography equipment used,said Yurek. The materials are compatible withlithography for 4K panels and beyond, he

said. The QD filter pattern will probably beapplied to the back side of the LCD’s frontglass, although it could be applied to the frontside. That will be up to the panel-maker,Yurek said. He concluded our conversation bysaying the air-stable QDs “could be commer-cial in 2018; 2019 for sure.”After leaving the Nanosys suite I had a

private meeting with Matt Bootman, CEO of QD developer Crystalplex, and businessdevelopment director Ken Acer. Bootman andAcer showed me samples of their company’ssapphire-passivated air-stable QDs deposited on polymer film. Each of the three samplesproduced a different color when a laser wasaimed at it. Not as flashy as a multi-coloredpattern, but sufficient to show the dots workin air and can be coated onto film.

3. Best LCD TV That Doesn’t UseQuantum Dots

LG is notable for not using quantum dots inits higher-level TV sets, but with wide colorgamut (WCG) becoming a requirement forhigh-end ultra-high-definition (UHD) sets,this is becoming an untenable position – or isit? In its booth on the CES show floor, LG hadan elaborate but unclear booth presentationpromoting its new “nano-cell display.” LGclaimed “accurate colors maintained at anyangle” for its new technology, and alsoclaimed that colors are enhanced. The com-pany said the nano-cell technology consistedof 1-nanometer particles uniformly distributedon the LCD cell.What LG was calling “nano-cell display”

on the show floor, LG Display (in its invita-tion-only suite in the Las Vegas ConventionCenter’s North Hall) was calling “IPS Nano-Color.” There are two distinct types of IPSNanoColor. The current version, which iswhat LG was showing, is called just IPSNanoColor. Here, the nanoparticles – whichare approximately 2 nm in diameter, not 1 –are indeed distributed on the front surface ofthe LCD, where they serve as a color filterand, perhaps, as a diffusion layer thatimproves the viewing angle. Since it serves as an additional color filter,

the IPS NanoColor layer obtains its increasein color purity at the expense of some effi-ciency. LGD said the technology delivers acolor gamut of 90% Digital Cinema Initiative(DCI), compared to 96% for quantum dots.However, it claims a backlight unit efficiencyof 78%, in contrast to QD’s 70%. LGD also

claims that with IPS NanoColor, the colorgamut at 80 degrees is still 91% of what it isnormal to the screen surface, while the equiv-alent QD number is 28%. I look forward toseeing if independent testing supports thesenumbers.The second-generation technology, IPS

NanoColor II, takes a different approach.Here, the backlight uses blue LEDs, and 1 nmnanoparticles are arrayed between the LCDcells and the backlight. Some of thesenanoparticles convert the blue light to red,while others convert to green, as quantum dotsdo. But these particles are too small to operateon the basis of quantum confinement. Anotherpossibility is that these are phosphor particles,but phosphor particles are typically 50–100times the diameter of LGD’s particles. LGDpersonnel were not permitted to provide anyadditional details, but they could say the particles had been developed in cooperationwith LG Chemical. NanoColor II, LGD said, will have a color

gamut about the same as QDs, with a BLUefficiency slightly less than the first-genNanoColor, but still slightly more than QD.The LGD reps suggested we could see IPSNanoColor II TV sets in 2018. For now, it will be very interesting to compare Samsung’simpressive new quantum-dot technology withthe first-gen IPS NanoColor.

4. Best TV Display Less Than 1 mmThick

In its suite, LGD showed the 77-in. “Wall-paper” OLED panel that will soon appear inthe LG Signature OLED TV W, LG’s top-of-the-line OLED TV. (The 65-in. version isavailable now at an MSRP of 1 cent less than$8000.) The panel itself is 0.95 mm thick. The TV in which it will appear is 5 mm thick,with the electronics in a separate box that isconnected to the set with a cable. The set incorporates all of the high-end

features you would expect and then some,including an HDR system that supportsHDR10, Dolby Vision, and hybrid log-gamma (HLG) HDR. The internal audio system supports 4.2 audio with Dolby Atmosimmersive sound.But the primary distinguishing factor of

the W is that it is so thin (and sufficiently light at 27 lbs.) that it can be mounted directlyon the wall – yes, like wallpaper. (The sepa-rate AV box weighs another 28 lbs.) It isimpressive (Fig. 2).


Fig. 1: Above are four true QLED subpixelsas demonstrated by Nanosys. The subpixelsare blue, but so bright they appear white evenwith the camera’s exposure compensation setto maximum underexposure. Photo courtesyKen Werner.


5. Best Biggest-Yet ElectrophoreticDisplay

If you thought the largest active-matrix elec-trophoretic display you could buy was only 32 in. on the diagonal, it’s time to think again.In the Las Vegas Convention Center’s seem-ingly endless South Hall, E Ink showed itsnew 42-in. display in cooperation with Quirk-Logic, whose networked whiteboard system(called “Quilla”) is the display’s first applica-tion. Both companies preferred the designa-tion “eWriter” to “whiteboard.”Quillas can wirelessly connect to Quillas

in other offices down the hall or around theworld for active collaboration and sharing.The 42-in. display has 85 ppi and 16 levels of gray, making the Quilla appropriate for the connected eWriter application. Each Quilla normally hangs from a wall

mount that delivers power and connects tobroadband. Simply lifting the Quilla off themount switches it to battery power and a WiFiconnection. The unit weighs a bit over 20pounds and will run all day on a batterycharge. QuirkLogic and E Ink claim that Quilla

offers the feel of pen on paper, and I can verify that. There was just enough latencybetween moving the stylus and having the lineon the display follow the stylus point to be

annoying. E Ink Chief Strategy Officer PaulApen and QuirkLogic’s Mike Maby agreedthat the latency is primarily a software issue,and that QuirkLogic is confident of solving itin the near term. In addition to the connectedbusiness and design applications shown in thebooth, QuirkLogic and E Ink see architectureas an important market. The companies expectto have more to say and show by the time ofSID’s Display Week in May.

6. Best Glasses-Free 3D DisplayPhiladelphia-based Stream TV Networksshowed the latest incarnation of its Ultra-D3D system – the best (and, as far as I couldtell, the only) glasses-free 3D system at CES.I was not impressed with early versions of thesystem, but the current one is very good andclearly benefits from starting with a 4K panel.There are no sweet (or sour) spots, with the3D field seeming to be continuous over a widerange of viewing angles (Fig. 3, left).There is a visible artifact: diagonal “raster”

lines. (There isn’t really a raster but the lineslook like the raster lines from an old CRT TV.)This shouldn’t be a deal breaker for most people, but you can see them (Fig. 3, right).The Ultra-D system consists of a propri-

etary multi-layer optical stack with a precisionlayer laminated to a 4K screen. “The film’s

unique design is based on the panel’s pixellayout and provides refractive and [diffrac-tive] elements to create a 140-degree continu-ous light front,” according to a Stream whitepaper. The lamination equipment is opera-tional at Pegatron, the company’s manufactur-ing partner. A TV or monitor maker must buythis display module from Pegatron. Anotheressential part of the system is a “renderingprocessor that decodes Ultra-D formatted content and assigns depth values to each ofthe 24 million subpixels for a natural andimmersive effect.” Yes, the content must be in the Ultra-D format, but processors and toolsets are available that implement real-timeconversion, native creation, or pre-conversion.As good as Ultra-D is, I remain convinced

that there are basic visual and psychologicalreasons why 3D TV is not generally appealingover the long term, with glasses or not (withthe possible exception of gaming). But thatstill leaves a wide range of consumer and professional monitor-based applications up for grabs, with gaming high on the list.

7. Best Product Prediction from a TVMaker

The 35-year-old Chinese company TCL pridesitself on its vast size and vertical integration.It is the world’s third-largest TV maker andthe fastest growing TV maker in North Amer-ica. It also holds the largest stake in panelmaker CSOT, which is currently building aGen 11 thin-film transistor and OLED plant at a total investment of US $7.7 billion. TCL chairman and founder Li Dongsheng

made introductory comments at TCL’s pressconference. He read from prepared notes, andit was clear that speaking in English was noteasy for him, but his efforts to do so anywayindicated the company’s seriousness aboutfurther expanding its penetration of the NorthAmerican market. Li and other executives talked up TCL’s

extensive TV line-up, including its 4K, quantum-dot, and HDR technologies; its TCLRoku smart TVs; and (at 110 in.) the world’slargest 4K curved TV. I have spoken dismis-sively of curved TVs in the 55- and 65-in.range – and sales figures confirm that this is a fad in steep decline – but at really large sizes curved screens make geometrical andergonomic sense. (Not that anyone is going to sell very many 110-in. TVs.)Ranjit Gopi, marketing director and head

of overseas marketing, emphasized the com-

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Fig. 2: LG’s “Wallpaper” OLED TVs are thin enough and light enough to mount directly to awall. The effect is striking. The price is high. Photo courtesy Ken Werner.


pany’s major investments in global brandbuilding, smart television technology, andsmart manufacturing technology. The com-pany has research centers around the world,he said, including one in Silicon Valley and acooperative research center at MIT.But for those in the audience who under-

stood it, Gopi’s most interesting comment wasthis: Quantum-dot-on-chip TV is coming! Hewouldn’t say when, but he did say it would be“sooner rather than later.” Why is this a bigdeal? Currently, the dominant approach tomaking quantum-dot-enhanced backlights isto distribute the QDs in a medium that isencapsulated between polymer films that protect them from oxygen and moisture. The multi-layer structure of this quantum-dotenhancement film (QDEF, which is a trade-mark owned by Nanosys) is more expensivethan the QDs that are incorporated within it.An attractive alternative would be to depositthe QDs directly on the LED chips that are the backlight’s source of illumination, doingaway with the film sandwich entirely.One problem with this is that the QDs

deteriorate rapidly when they are subjected to high luminous flux and, especially, heat.And LED chips are hot. Several companieshave been working on this problem, includingthe recently sold QD Vision, whose IP wasacquired by Samsung last fall. Another is Pacific Light Technologies (Portland, Oregon), whose CEO Doug Barnes was

previously VP and GM of the specialty dis-plays business at Planar. Could PLT be work-ing with TCL? Barnes politely refused tocomment.With the technical difficulties confronting

this technology, a dot-on-chip TV “soonerrather than later” would be a major step in thenow-rapid evolution of QD-enhanced TVs.

8. Best “Me-Too” Product With its A1E series of Bravia OLED TV sets,Sony is making an impressive entry into thevery limited field of OLED TV manufactur-ers. Sony is using LGD OLED TV panels, ofcourse, so there is no product differentiationthere, but it has done its best to create a high-end product that includes impressive indus-trial design and presumably top-notchelectronics. Whether the picture quality differssignificantly from the LGD competitionremains to be seen, but the image looks verygood indeed (Fig. 4).On display were 65- and 77-in. 4K HDR

OLED sets featuring Sony’s Acoustic Surfacetechnology, which incorporates transducersthat produce sound by vibrating the entire display panel. This idea is not new, of course.At the beginning of this decade the Britishcompany NXT was working with the sameidea, and showed prototypes of notebookcomputers using the technology. NXT cus-tomers produced a variety of thin speakersthat were sold commercially.

One problem NXT encountered was inter-ference between the screen’s pixel structureand the screen vibrations at lower acousticfrequencies. The solution was to cut off thefrequency at 150 Hz and use a separatewoofer, which presumably made the approachless attractive for laptop computers. We willsoon see how Sony has dealt with this issue.What Acoustic Surface, and NXT’s Surface-Sound before it, can do is localize a sound atany point on the screen. Reportedly, Sony hasdone a good job of co-locating the origin ofthe sound and image content with a good dealof precision. But this was a me-too feature as well.

LGD was showing its Crystal Sound OLED in its North Hall suite. It’s hard to differentiateyour product when the core technology comesfrom your supplier.

9. Best Display Product Without anObvious Market

Arovia’s Spontaneous Pop-Up Display(SPUD) is a Kickstarter-funded product conceived by enthusiastic alumni of Rice University. Shown at the CES Unveiled press and analyst event, SPUD is an inflat-able display with a Texas Instruments Digital Micromirror Device (DMD)-basedprojector and 24-in. rear-projection screen(Fig. 5).Arovia says its “ideal initial customer is

the ‘mobile millennial.’ ” But the market has


Fig. 3: Left: Stream TV’s glasses-free 3D system provides an immersive gaming experience that is far more comfortable than one that involveswearing VR goggles. Right: Stream TV’s autostereoscopic effect is provided over a wide viewing angle without conventional sweet and sour spots.The trade-off is these diagonal lines, which are noticeable at normal viewing distances but probably not a deal breaker for most viewers. Photoscourtesy Ken Werner.


repeatedly demonstrated its lack of interest inrear-projection displays, and there are provenalternatives such as miniature projectors,lightweight monitors, large tablets, and eco-nomical notebook PCs with 15.6- and 17.3-in.screens. (You still need a PC or tablet to drivethe SPUD.) Am I missing something? For thesake of these agreeable young entrepreneurs, I hope so.

10. Best OLED Notebook PC Also at CES Unveiled, Lenovo showed its2017 ThinkPad X1 Yoga convertible notebookPC with a Gen 7 Intel Core i7, 16GB of mem-ory, and up to 1TB of SSD storage. You canbuy one with a 14-in. wide-quad high-definition 300-nit OLED touchscreen for a$300 premium, and this is clearly the world’sbest OLED notebook because it’s the only

one. Lenovo showed the 2016 model at lastyear’s CES, and said then that the OLEDoption was an experiment that would only becontinued if sales justified it. Apparently, theydid. But is the option being extended to anyother models? Not this year, said Lenovo’sDavid Harris.

11. Best Display ExhibitThis is easy, because it’s always the same one:LG Display’s by-invitation-only suite, which,this year, was in one of the Las Vegas Con-vention Center’s North Hall meeting areas.LGD frequently shows what is under the hoodof the products its sister company, LG Elec-tronics, is exhibiting on the show floor. And itoften shows products and technologies thatare under development. We’ve already described the OLED panel

that is only 0.95 mm thick, and IPS Nano-Color. LGD showed a 55-in. full high-definition OLED with 45% transmittance. The combination of transparent clarity andcolor saturation was impressive. The panel isnot a product yet, but LGD is exploring thetechnology for other applications. One of those applications was an automo-

tive see-through head-up display (HUD)mounted to the top of a mock-up car dash-board. In the well-lit demonstration area, theimages were bright and clear, without theoptical and viewing-angle limitations of pro-jection HUDs. There is a problem, though.The National Highway Traffic Safety Admin-istration specifies that any HUD must have atransmittance of at least 70%. An LGD engi-

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Fig. 4: It’s difficult to say if Sony’s electronics get a better picture out of LG’s OLED panel thanLG’s own electronics, but the image quality of Sony’s A1E series of Bravia OLEDs is excellent.Photo courtesy Ken Werner.

Fig. 5: Arovia’s pop-up display inflates from 1.5 lbs. of folded polymer film to a 24-in. rear-projection DMD display. Photos courtesy Ken Werner.


neer said the company is hopeful that it canget from 45% to 70% transmittance. A clever use of the transparent OLED was

to lay it over an LCD instrument cluster.Warnings were directed alternately to theLCD and the OLED, giving the impression ofthe indicator moving toward and away fromthe driver, which was attention-grabbing. TheOLED was also used to overlay speedometerand tachometer pointers and some digits.A plastic OLED was used to make a wave-

like display over the entire dash with a convex portion of the wave over the instrument cluster,concave over the center, and convex in frontof the passenger. This display dash lookedcontinuous but it used three tiled panels. Plastic OLED is a growing market, and wewere told that LGD is well positioned to par-ticipate in this growth thanks to a G4.5 and aG6 fab. We were not permitted to take photo-graphs of the automotive OLED displays. Another demonstration focused on LCD

pillar panels, displays with extreme aspect ratios for high-end signage installations. These panels were fabricated directly on the mother glass,not resized from displays with traditionalaspect ratios, an LGD engineer said (Fig. 6).

Last year, LGD showed its S(uper)-IPSpanel, which used rubbing with a soft cloth to establish the surface alignment of the liquid-crystal molecules. In the very earlydays of twisted-nematic LCD fabrication, this rubbing was done by hand, and someoperators had “the touch” for doing it and others didn’t. Now, the rubbing is mecha-nized, with a rotating roller on which the rubbing fabric is mounted, but it’s still ashockingly 19th-century-looking process for a 21st-century high-tech factory. This year,LGD was showing off its U(ltra)-IPS technol-ogy, which delivers better viewing-angle per-formance, an LGD rep said, thanks to creatingthe alignment layer with ultraviolet light, pat-terning, and a polymerizable layer instead ofrubbing. UV alignment was developed manyyears ago, but has only fitfully been used incommercial products. Industry sentiment hasoften been that “rubbing is good enough,” butthis is a competitive world and sentimentschange.

Quantum Dots Stole the (Display) ShowThe most exciting near- and medium-termdevelopments are still in quantum dots,

including air-stable dots, dot-on-chip, and –down the line – true QLED. Flexible OLEDsfor automotive and other applications shouldalso be high on the list, as is solution process-ing to dramatically reduce the cost of OLEDdisplays. We didn’t see any of that at CESbecause it’s not here yet, and is taking longerthan many of us expected. Until it comes, thedramatic improvements in QD-enhanced displays will satisfy the market for all butsuper-premium large-screen products. n


Fig. 6: LGD’s pillar displays have aspect ratios as high as 58:9, luminance of 700 nits, and acolor gamut of 100% of sRGB. Photo courtesy Ken Werner.

J O I N S I DWe invite you to join SID to participate in shaping the future development of:

• Display technologies and display-related products

• Materials and components for displays and display applications

• Manufacturing processes and equipment

• New markets and applications

In every specialty you will find SIDmembers as leading contributors totheir profession.

http://www.sid.org/Membership.aspx

Submit Your News ReleasesPlease send all press releases and new productannouncements to:

Jenny DonelanInformation Display Magazine411 Lafayette Street, Suite 201

New York, NY 10003Fax: 212.460.5460

e-mail: [email protected]




This is a big year for Display Week. Nearly 700 papers were submitted to the Society forInformation Display’s 2017 technical sympo-sium. This is the highest number since 2011(coincidentally or not, this was the last timeDisplay Week took place in Los Angeles).

An impressive 30% of this year’s submis-sions were from China alone. Another 20%were from Korea, making one half of thisyear’s submissions from these two countries(approximately 75% of all papers are from theAsian nations of China, Korea, Taiwan, andJapan). “Display Week 2017 is shaping up tobe one of the most technologically advancedand diverse symposiums we have hosted. It is a very exciting time to be in the displayindustry, anywhere around the world, and ourspeaker line-up aptly reflects this,” said Tech-nical Program Chair Rashmi Rao at the paperselection meeting last winter in Seattle.

This year’s technical symposium runs fromMay 23 to 26, and will include 311 oral pre-sentations and 240 poster presentations on a

vast range of display topics. Obviously, that’s many more papers than any one person can take in during the four days of the program, but you can focus on the ones that are most importantto you if you plan ahead by accessing the preliminary program online at http://displayweek.org/2017/Program/Symposium.aspx andalso by reading this article, in which we pointout some of the highlights. Last but not least:don’t forget to bring friends and colleaguesalong to cover what you can’t!

Papers at Display Week are organized intosessions by technical focus: Active-MatrixDevices, Emerging Applications, AppliedVision, Display Electronics, Display Manu-facturing, Display Measurement, Display Systems, Emissive Displays, e-Paper andFlexible Displays, Lighting, Liquid-CrystalTechnology, OLEDs, Touch and InteractiveDisplays, and Automotive/Vehicle Displays.Each session consists of three to five 20-minute presentations.

AR/VR, Digital Signage, Display Materials, Vehicular Displays, and Wearables Headline Display Week 2017Technical Program in Los AngelesA bumper crop of papers submitted to this year’s symposium ensures that the field will bebroad as well as deep. Highlights include novel technologies like aerial displays, perovskites, full-windshield automotive head-up displays, and tunable microlens arrays, as well as practicaladvances in manufacturing and metrology that will help you do your job better. This is youronce-a-year opportunity to find out what’s happening in the field of displays. The discoveriesyou’ll make at Display Week will inform your business plans for months and years to come.

by Jenny Donelan

Jenny Donelan is the editor in chief of Information Display Magazine. She can bereached at [email protected].


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Attendees take in one of hundreds of technical presentations at last year’s Display Week in SanFrancisco. The symposium is the heart and soul of Display Week.

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It’s worth noting that while the technicalsymposium is the heart and soul of DisplayWeek, there are many other valuable eventsgoing on: the Sunday Short Courses and Display Metrology Workshops; the MondaySeminars; the Business, Investors, and MarketFocus Conferences; the CMO Forum; and theWednesday night Special Networking event atthe Grammy Museum. New this year are aforum aptly titled “Women in Tech,” in whichfive distinguished women from technologyfields will discuss their professional chal-lenges and successes; and a special 30thAnniversary OLED Celebration, whichincludes talks from Ching Tang and Steve VanSlyke, the two researchers who delivered thefirst OLED paper at SID three decades ago.Visit www.display.org for a schedule.

The peer-reviewed papers chosen for pres-entation at Display Week represent the bestwork being done in display technology. Hereare a few of the highlights from this year’ssessions. While it isn’t possible to mentionevery exciting development or worthwhilepresentation in this space, we hope this listwill serve to whet your appetite for what’s instore at the symposium.

Many Materials, Many AdvancesEvery year, SID creates areas of special focusthat are designed to both reflect and encour-age interest in specific areas of display technology. This year, these focus areas areAR/VR, Digital Signage, Display Materialsand Processes, and Wearables. We’ll start with Display Materials and Processes, becausethere’s quite a bit going on here.

Thermally activated delayed fluorescence(TADF) emitters and perovskites are two“hot” new materials that are attracting a lot ofattention, according to Ion Bita, co-chair forthis year’s Display Materials and Processesprogram. TADF emitters have the potential toimprove OLED performance, and perovskitesare an emissive nanomaterial that may be usedin ways similar to semiconductor QDs. Bitanotes that while the investigated perovskitescontain more lead than QDs (many of whichcontain cadmium), the Restriction of Haz-ardous Substances (RoHS) limits for lead content are higher than those for cadmiumcontent. Cadmium-based QDs have facedsome market challenges in terms of environ-mental regulations, and this may give per-ovskites an edge. Bita is also the guest editorfor this issue of ID magazine, and has brought

us articles on both TADF emitters and per-ovskites. Make sure you read them so you’reahead of the curve before the show.

Speaking of QDs – they continue to be apopular research topic. It’s exciting to see atechnology move from the emerging to thecommercial category in just a few years. Thepaper “Key Challenges towards the Commer-cialization of Quantum-Dot LEDs” by LeiQuian of TCL Corporate Research will beuseful for anyone wanting to get up to speedon QDs and QLEDs. Lei’s work covers per-formance, including efficiency and lifetime,as well as the development of printable QDinks (including ink-jet printing techniques),and blue QDs. To find out more about theenvironmental aspects of QDs, check out“Environmentally Friendly Quantum Dots forDisplay Applications” by Hyosook Jang ofSamsung. This presentation describes theadoption of indium phosphide (Inp) basedQDs as an alternative to cadmium-based ones.

Two other intriguing materials are carbonnanotubes and zinc-oxide nanorods. You canfind out more about them in the presentations“Printed Carbon-Nanotube TFTs and TheirApplication in OLED Backplane Circuits” byJianwen Zhao at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and “ZnO Nanorod Array Fabricatedon Conductive and Transparent Gallium-Doped ZnO substrates for Sensing Applica-tions in Displays” by Chaoyang Li of theKochi University of Technology, respectively.

According to Frank Yan, chairman of theEmissive Displays subcommittee, researchinterest is strong in quantum-dot light-emit-ting diode (QLED) and micro-LED materials.Micro-LED papers increased from 3 to 7 this year over last, and emissive sessionsexpanded from 5 to 7. Submissions fromChina accounted for about half those papers.(Yan mentioned that the technical committeein China organized the International Confer-ence on Display Technology [ICDT], encour-aging scientists to submit papers to ICDT aswell as to Display Week, which had a positiveeffect on both quantity and quality.) In termsof the emissive papers from all over theworld, says Yan, “The overall quality wasvery high. We had to reject papers of reason-able quality this year that would have beenselected in previous years.”

Michael Weaver, chair of the OLEDs subcommittee, also mentioned TADF emittersas a popular topic, because it is a competingtechnology compared to phosphors as an

OLED emitter material. Another trend forOLEDs that Weaver points to is digital cinema. A recommended OLED paper in thisarea is “Curved Kawara-Type MultidisplayCombined with an OLED Device for BT.2020Color Gamut” by Daiki Nakamura of SEL,which describes a multidisplay capable of displaying a seamless image with few visiblejoints. The OLED display achieves an arearatio of 106% to the BT.2020 color gamut inthe uʹvʹ chromaticity diagram.

Beyond RealityAugmented reality and virtual reality devices,especially the head-mounted variety, fre-quently show up on the pages of mainstreammedia, but the devices themselves aren’t inthe mainstream in terms of usage. The chal-lenge of making comfortable, useful devicesthat will take advantage of “killer apps” yet tocome is also an opportunity for display mak-ers. No further indication of such interest isneeded than the Society’s selection of ClayBavor, vice president of virtual reality forGoogle, as one of the keynote speakers whowill kick off Display Week. Google’s best-known foray into this area was Google Glass,but it now makes the affordable ($15) GoogleCardboard and the comfortable (fabric-covered) Daydream viewers. Bavor is sure tohave lots to say about the state of the art andthe future of VR and how display companiescan be part of it.

The technical symposium will offer several AR/VR sessions with a large number ofinvited papers, including “Liquid CrystalLenses in Augmented Reality” by Yi-Hsin Linfrom National Chiao Tung University and “A Switchable Light-Field Display for MobileApplications” by David Fattal of LEIA. (IDmagazine interviewed Fattal in the January/February 2017 issue.) There is also an entiresession dedicated to Light-Field Displays for AR and VR that is sure to offer a lot of insights into the promising territory of light fields.

A Large Display by Any Other Name...All digital signs are electronic displays, butnot all electronic displays are digital signs.The distinction probably isn’t terribly impor-tant outside of Display Week, but for the purposes of categorizing papers for the sym-posium, the technical committees decided todesignate displays larger than 120 inches asdigital signage, says Gary Feather, chair ofthis year’s digital signage focus initiative.

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“LCD is probably the major digital signagetechnology right now,” says Feather. One pop-ular trend is reducing the bezel so as to makedisplay “walls” that can be configured to looklike mirrors, or actual walls, or whatever kindof backdrop might be required.

Another trend is LEDs for digital cinemathat would incorporate Dolby vision at 4,000nits. “These would be ultra fine pitch, and finepitch is the important thing,” says Feather.(For more about high-resolution LED signs,see Feather’s article, “Elemental Evolution ofDigital-Signage Components,” in the January/February 2016 issue of ID magazine.)

Find out more about both trends from thepapers “Development of a Zero-Bezel DisplayUtilizing a Waveguide Image-TransformationElement” by Sejin Lee of LG Display Co.,Ltd. and “Fine-Pitch Image Quality on LEDVideo Screens” by Jorge Perez Bravo ofNanoLumens.

Exploring the High Dynamic Range “The biggest trend in Applied Vision is HDR[high dynamic range],” says David Hoffman,subcommittee chair for Applied Vision. “Wehave a whole session on that. And we have aninvited speaker from a [film] studio, UniversalPictures – we don’t get studio people to speakto us very often. I think it’s going to be reallyinteresting.” That paper, “Qualitative Explo-ration of HDR Display Performance,” by BillMandel of Universal Pictures, considers HDRcontent in relation to HDR display capability.The author presents test patterns and relatedtools that explore contrast and saturationacross HDR tone ranges, and argues for further exploration of HDR techniques in conjunction with human vision factors to continually improve the viewing experience.

HDR cropped up in Display Electronics aswell, according to subcommittee chair WeiYao, who noted there were quite a few paperson the topic – in fact there is an entire sessiondevoted to HDR and image processing. “This

is a ‘soft’ area, which is unusual for displayelectronics,” says Yao, meaning that DisplayElectronics does not usually address aesthet-ics. “This is about processing the data, makingit look nice for consumers who buy the TVs.”

The other trend in Display Electronics –driving circuits for OLEDs – Yao describes as“less soft” and indicative of industry-wideinterest in OLEDs.

Displays from Head to ToeCurrently, two of the hot areas for wearablesresearch are displays and supporting elec-tronics that can be worn on the body in theform of clothing or sensors, and display systems that are worn on the head, such as VR goggles.

The former category includes efforts tomake stretchable and flexible systems that canultimately mimic fabrics and protective cloth-ing. Most of the stretchability papers have to do with the underlying electronics thatallow the stretchability, notes Bill Cummings,co-chair of the Wearables program. He pointsto “Smart Fabrics Functionalized by LiquidCrystals” by John West at Kent State Univer-sity as an especially interesting, out-of-theordinary paper. It describes liquid-crystalfunctionalized smart fabrics fabricated by gas jet- or electro-spinning. According to theauthors, “These fabrics retain all the stimuli-responsive properties of liquid crystals.Because they are flexible, self-supporting and have large surface-area-to-volume ratios,[they] are ideally suited for an array of sensing applications.”

The other aspect of wearables is what Cummings describes as “things that attach toyour head.” These displays have to get better,he says. “People don’t really want to putthings on their heads. And they don’t knowwhat to do with it [head-mounted technol-ogy].” The need for head-mounted displaysand the quality of the head-mounted displaysmust come together, he continues.

In terms of the latter, a necessity is a veryhigh resolution display near to your eyes, and companies are working toward that goal.“We’re excited to see the activity at this con-ference,” he says. “What we’re seeing is amerger of activity in microdisplays amongestablished companies, start-ups, and univer-sity research labs. And when there’s a lot ofactivity, there’s a lot of innovation.”

There’s also an entire session on micro-LED displays, including a good overview ofthis technology, the invited paper “NitrideMicrodisplays and Micro-LED Displays,” by Hongxing Jiang of Texas Tech University,which will discuss development, applications,and future possibilities.

Displays on WheelsVehicle designs incorporate ever-increasingnumbers of displays for both information andentertainment purposes, and this is a welcometrend for display makers. According to Karl-heinz Blankenbach, chair of the Automotive/Vehicle Subcommittee, there is a trend towardlarger and curved displays for infotainment asthe industry looks toward autonomous driv-ing. “There’s a notion of cars as a third livingspace,” says Blankenbach. In addition, high-concept interior and exterior lighting (oftenusing LEDs) is increasing, with the latter evenbeginning to serve as branding by creating auniquely recognizable look for the vehicle.

If you’d like a big-picture view of what’shappening in vehicles, check out “How theMobility of Tomorrow Influences the Tech-nologies of Today” by Nadine Langguth of Merck KGaA. This paper considersautonomous driving, the connected car, urban-ization, car sharing, transportation on demand,and many other use trends that will affect notonly drivers but display makers.

Automotive topics, including human-machine interface (HMI), are covered in several sessions. An entire session is devotedto automotive HMIs, with four invited papersby prominent authors.

Making and Measuring DisplaysDisplay Manufacturing received the largestnumber of papers in at least five years,according to subcommittee chair Dr. TianXiao. Hot topics include the application ofemerging materials such as graphene in dis-plays, and LTPS and oxide TFT manufactur-ing technologies that are compatible withflexible/bendable displays. The topic of oxide

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What we’re seeing is a merger of activity in micro-displays among established companies, start-ups, and university research labs. And when there’s a lot of activity,there’s a lot of innovation.

Bill Cummings

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TFT is not new, says Xiao. “But the ultimategoal is to make the manufacturing cost ofoxide TFT on par with that of amorphous silicon TFT, and the race is on to make thathappen!”

Another trend he sees is high resolution forOLEDs. There are many papers on how tomanufacture OLED displays with very high-ppi values, Xiao says, adding that this is par-tially driven by AR/VR, where such highresolution is needed on very small display formats.

Another notable paper in display manufac-turing combines both metrology and manufac-turing disciplines. “Applied Materials [the author] is really helping the industry to improve the yield for high-resolution frontplanes andbackplanes,” says Xiao. “It involves usinginline SEM [scanning electron microscope] technology on large panels.” The invited paper is “Inline Electron-Beam-Review (EBR)Accelerates Yield Ramp-Up of Advanced Dis-plays” by Xuena Zhang of Applied Materials.

The big news in Display Measurement,according to subcommittee chair Tom Fiske,is AR/VR and the new ICDM standard. Thereis an entire session on metrics for AR/VR.“People are proposing several different methods for NTE [near to eye] display meas-urements. These measurement systems, insome cases, attempt to measure optical per-formance parameters in ways that mimic whatthe human eye sees – or at least in ways thatare relevant to the human visual system.”

Not to be missed is an overview of theprogress of the revised ICDM display meas-urements standard, which will include newmethods of optical metrology for resolution,HDR, AR/VR, curved displays, and more.This presentation, by Joe Miseli of JVMResearch, is called “Progress Toward theICDM2 Display Measurements Standard.”Says Fiske, “This is a very significant publica-tion. A lot of companies are involved and caredeeply about it.”

Notable PapersThe following is a list of a few more notablepapers (there are many more than can benamed here) from various areas of the technical program:

How Lighting May Affect Your Health —“Biological Effects of Light: Can Self-lumi-nous Displays Play a Role?” by MarianaFigueiro of the Lighting Research Center atRensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

“This is a look at the impact of lighting onhealth,” says Lighting Subcommittee ChairMarina Kondakova. “The author describes theeffects of lighting, especially blue light, oncircadian rhythms.” The paper considers dis-plays that produce more blue light in daytimeand more amber light at night. This “tunable”lighting is being used in hospitals and inAlzheimer’s facilities.

Investigating OLED Touch — “A NovelTouch-Control Method with Partial Scanningfor LC, OLED, and Hybrid Displays Using anOxide Semiconductor” by Kei Takahashi ofSemiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.

“We have a great OLED touch session,”says subcommittee chair Jeff Han. This paperis one of three in that special session.

Illumination Decisions — “Lasers, Lamps,or Phosphors – Choices for the Future of Digital Cinema” by Michael Perkins ofChristie Digital Systems.

The first generation of digital cinema pro-jectors are now being deployed into themajority of movie theaters around the world.The illumination technology of choice for thatfirst generation was Xenon lamps. Now thatlaser and laser-phosphor are mainstream illu-mination technologies, cinema projectionengineers have a whole new set of decisionsto make.

A Display You Can Dive Into — “An Aerial Display: Passing through a Floating ImageFormed by Retro-Reflective Reimaging” byHidetsugu Suginohara of Mitsubishi ElectricCorp.

The authors have developed a 56-in. float-ing image that you can “dive” into. This is oneof three papers in a special Aerial Displayssession with Display Systems.

Better Surgery Through Augmented Reality — “Augmented-Reality Training System forEndoscopic Surgery” by Rong Wang at theChinese Academy of Sciences.

The authors propose a 3D augmented reality (AR) system for perception training on theablation of a tumor inside the kidney. The system consists of region-based visual track-ing for localizing the kidney and tumor and a

3D display for visualizing AR results. Theyalso integrate a virtual instrument in the system.

A Microlens Array for Surgeons —“Wavelength-Independent Electrically Tunable Microlens Array with a Chiral Nematic LiquidCrystal” by Kai-Han Chang with the LiquidCrystal Institute at Kent State University.

This is a late-news paper that describes aliquid-crystal microlens array with low oper-ating voltage and wavelength-independent,electrically tunable focal length, qualities thatmake it suitable for full-color 3D microscopyand endoscopy applications.

Getting LCDs Ready for the Spotlight —“Can LCDs Outperform OLED Displays inMotion-Picture Response Time?” by Shin-Tson Wu of the University of Central Florida.

The author of this invited paper describessome metrics that would improve LCDmotion-picture response time.

Super-stretchy LEDs — “Ultrathin Stretch-able Oxide Thin Film Transistor and ActiveMatrix Organic Light-emitting Diode Dis-plays” by Seong-Deok Ahn of ETRI.

The authors demonstrate ultrathin, stretch-able oxide thin-film transistor and active-matrix organic light-emitting diode displaysthat can be operated as free-standing ultrathinfilms under 30% strain.

Introducing an 8K BT.2020 AMOLED —“An 8.34-in. 1058-ppi 8K x 4K FlexibleOLED Display” by Tomoya Aoyama of Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.

By combining an OLED device with acolor filter and a specially designed top emission structure, the authors successfullyfabricated a full-specification 8K AMOLEDpanel with the BT.2020 color gamut.

High Gamut Automotive Displays —“Quantum-Dot-Based Wide-Color-GamutTFT-LCDs for Automotive Applications” byRashmi Rao and Elijah Auger of Harman Inc.This paper will discuss the details of manufac-turing a wide-color gamut LCD-TFT displayusing quantum dot film, and the testing proce-dures used to qualify such a display for auto-motive applications. n


This [ICDM2] is a very significant publication. A lot of companies are involved and care deeply about it.

Tom Fiske“ ”

ID: IRYStec’s main product is called Perceptual Display Technology. Can you describe what that is?

Tara Akhavan:Perception is a missing link in the display industry. Display settings are not a guarantee of what we will perceive, becausethere are a lot of other influences on how we see information.The biggest one is ambient lighting. What you render on a display is not necessarily going to be perceived the same waywhen you are in a really dark environment as when you arewalking in a park in the daytime. You need to change the wayyou are rendering according to the way eyes work in differentambient lighting. Another aspect is the personalized aspect ofperception. Each of us has a unique visual system. We see stuffdifferently, according to age, gender, and background culture.This all affects the way we perceive information. You personal-ize it to make sure that what you perceive is what you were supposed to.

ID: How does your technology do that?TA: We have close collaborations with a lot of physiologists and

psychologists who understand how the eye works and reactswith regard to aging, ambient light change [etc.], and we modeland compensate [accordingly]. So before content is shown in a dark room, the device knows you are in a dark room and renders that content differently.

ID: So at this point the device is determining what the ambient lightin the room is.

TA: Yes. But in terms of the personalization, we need to collect thedata – the age and the gender of the user. After that a tiny calibration is made and the content is rendered, based on that.

ID: Is this done on the fly or is this something the user needs toenter ahead of time?

TA: The ambient process is done on the fly, because the ambiencecan change pretty rapidly. The calibration for personalization issomething you would do just once.

Simon Morris:The innovation is basically two forms: figuring out the algo-rithms and then figuring out a lightweight implementation forthem, on a device. This process is pretty heavy computationallyand often has to be in hardware, which is the approach thatsome of the competition has taken.

TA: Our product is pure software. That is the magic.

ID: The algorithms are embedded in software in a particular device?TA: They would be embedded in an OS. SM: This could also be integrated in an app, like YouTube or

Facebook, but the most effective implementation is really at theOS layer, where all apps can benefit from IRYStec technology.

ID: What applications do you foresee? And devices?SM: The need is greatest where a display is personalized – a smart-

phone, obviously, or a tablet. Any display that is moving whileyou are using it, from bright light to darkness. Automotive isanother application. Especially motorcycles, which are goingthrough the same transformation as cars, with the instrumenta-tion cluster turning into a display.

TA: Only in movie theaters do you have control over the ambiance.Everywhere else you have displays where the environment isnot controlled anymore. It’s very dynamic. And while it is greatto go from LED to OLED to quantum dot, the software side ofthe game needs to catch up.

ID: What stage is the technology at right now? For example, do youhave partners?

SM: Well, we call customers, customers! We are working with adozen or so handset manufacturers, of which more than half a

Q&A with IRYStecID interviews Tara Akhavan, Simon Morris, and Afsoon Soudi, the principals of IRYStec, a Montreal-based startup that makes Perceptual Display Platform (PDP), an embedded software technology that adjusts the characteristics of content displayed on devices to matchhow a viewer’s eyes see it in different ambient light. IRYStec was founded by Akhavan andSoudi in Montreal, and closed its Series A financing round in June 2016.

Conducted by Jenny Donelan

Jenny Donelan is the editor in chief of Information Display Magazine.She can be reached at [email protected].


market insights

ID Donelan Interview p40-42_Layout 1 3/4/2017 12:12 PM Page 40


dozen are in detailed evaluation of our smartphone technology.We’ve brought one phone manufacturer to preproduction. Weexpect sometime in the second quarter to be in a productionhandset. And in automotive we signed our first actual licensingagreement and we’re developing and supporting the softwarefor what’s called driver information systems. There’s a slightlydifferent use case for automotive, where safety is paramount,and there are some standards around contrast, so you have tomaintain certain contrast levels. We are getting a taste of the VRmarket. We’re trying to get a better feel for the exact use casefor VR, but it’s not the major focus right now.

ID: Can you describe your business journey so far? How did youget started, and what kinds of successes and failures have youhad leading up to this point?

TA: We started 2.5 years ago in an incubator in Montreal with theoriginal idea of just compensating for darkness, for night vision.My background is computer vision. I moved from Vienna, Austria, to Montreal to start this because of the funding available in the incubator. I discovered my brilliant co-founder [AfsoonSoudi] here in Montreal. I’ll let Afsoon explain the challenges!

Afsoon Soudi:In 2014 there was this hype in Silicon Valley [for startups] butnot so much in Canada. It was not that easy to get funding as atechnical founder. But things were starting in Montreal, andTandemLaunch helped us start the process. The companystarted with just us and a couple of interns and a few professorsand advisors from Europe and the US.The biggest challenge initially was to find the right market fit

for the technology we had. We had a lot of dis-cussions with brilliant people to learn moreabout the business side and find the right wayto position our product. That was how, later on,we came across Simon. He had the experienceof delivering products in the automotive mar-ket and with very similar processes to how wewanted our product positioned. Having his


Tara Akhavan is co-founder and CTO ofIRYStec. She has a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and a master’s degreein artificial intelligence. She is currently finishing her Ph.D. in image processing andcomputer vision at Vienna University of Technology in Austria. Akhavan is the vicechair for marketing for the Society for Information Display.

Afsoon Soudi is co-founder and vice presi-dent of R&D for IRYStec. Prior to foundingIRYStec, Soudi led multiple research groups.She has a Ph.D. in physics from WashingtonState University. She has also been activelyinvolved in various societies, including SPIE,and in promoting women in science and technology.

Simon Morris joined IRYStec as CEO in early2016. He was formerly CEO of CogniVue Corporation. He has also served as directorat BDC Venture Capital and, from 1995 to2006, in various senior leadership positionswith Texas Instruments and Atsana Semicon-ductor. He has bachelor’s and master’sdegrees in electrical engineering from theRoyal Military College of Canada, and is amember of the Professional Engineers ofOntario.

I also wanted to add that from the beginning, SID hashad a great impact on how we put our business together.

Tara Akhavan“ ”


complementary experience definitelyadded a lot of value and made our second round of financing possible inJune 2016.

TA: Raising money, building a team,attracting professors to work withyou – all of those are challenging forevery startup. But on top of that wewere two women co-founders. We went to Display Weektogether: Our first event was the I-Zone at Display Week. Whenpeople would visit our booth from other, bigger companies theywere always asking us, who are the technical people, and wewere like, that is us! Those were extra challenges and we havealways faced them, but we have been so lucky to get peopleinvolved, like our CEO, and our investors, who support us.

SM: It’s a challenge and I can see it happening. The first time Ijoined them [Tara and Afsoon] at CES, we had a booth in thestartup area. Tara, Afsoon, and I were all dressed nicely, business-like. Inevitably everyone would come to me to ask me the technical questions.

ID: Do you have advice to offer people and especially youngwomen going into the sorts of areas that you’re in? Can youoffer some encouragement?

TA: I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. If you are a tech-nologist and you are a woman, even at school you are a minor-ity. You are always facing this. But it gets more real when youstart working in the industry. I think the answer is ... well, Ihave seen other people [in these situations] get angry or getoffended. But you need to push through and surround your-selves with people who support you, like our investors and ourCEO. They trust us and believe in us and we build on top ofthat. We might have a harder time getting there but we just pushand don’t give up.

AS: Nothing in life comes easy or at no cost. It’s not gonna be allroses and rainbows and it can be hard. There are mornings wheneverything is great and then by the afternoon it’s just horribleand bad. It’s great if you can find partners like Tara and Simonwho can get you through those difficult times. It’s very impor-tant to have the right people to start with and build the cultureof the company on that. Startups are difficult. Ninety percent ofthem fail in the first year, and another 70 to 80 percent fail inthe second year, so it is a difficult thing to do. You have to pushthrough it and not get discouraged.

ID: You’ve been going through this admittedly challenging stage,but soon you’re not going to be an up-and-coming companyselling a possible product; you’re going to be a company sellinga product. How does that look to you and inform your hiringpractices and your involvement withthe day-to-day business?

TA: The scaling is a real challenge. Youhave to start from the right place. Wehad this experience going from fewerthan five people to more than 20 people. That was a big jump for us.

You have to have the right strategies. Hire the right people with the right expertise and keep them motivated.

SM: It’s a different skill set to deal with the various levels of thecompany as it grows. There actually aren’t a lot of people whostay from a startup position to the very end. Mark Zuckerberg isone of them. As founders you’ve always got to be aware of yourlimits, strengths, and weaknesses, and then complement your-self with the right people as you move through the stages ofgrowing the business. I think founders who have that perspec-tive can grow nicely with the business.

TA: One thing about hiring that I’m very proud of is that we haveone of the most diverse teams in terms of both technology back-ground and also male/female balance. We’re at almost 50/50male/female, which adds a lot to the dynamics and health of our startup. We are from seven different countries. [Skill] diversity is also a key point. A lot of the big compa-

nies are slow, and we are faster because we have a very diverseteam. And that is since day one. When I joined I had a goodsoftware background, but I was always looking for complemen-tary skill sets. Hardware is one of those, and that’s whereAfsoon, my co-founder, came in. And we had a great tech advi-sory board that would help us put together the bits and pieces.

SM: Diversity also concerns personality. There’s a tendency torecruit people with similar personalities to yours. It’s hard toavoid that and find instead someone who is going to comple-ment and strengthen your team. You want to bring in peoplewho are not necessarily going to agree with you – the ones whowill critique you the most. Sometimes this leads to heated dis-cussions, but it’s healthier for the company. There’s a tendencywith startups to have everyone who thinks alike. And that’s dangerous.

TA: I also wanted to add that from the beginning, SID has had agreat impact on how we put our business together. I-Zone wasour first outing as a company. Our first investor is now presi-dent elect. We were introduced to SID early on. The shortcourses, and all the Display Week events, helped us find thebasic things we were looking for. And the I-Zone is great forstart-ups. So we kind of have this feeling of semi-ownership,semi-gratitude toward SID. n

market insights


It’s very important to have the right people to start withand build the culture of the company on that.

Afsoon Soudi“ ”

There’s a tendency with startups to have everyone whothinks alike. And that’s dangerous.

Simon Morris“ ”


Announcements

Discontinuation of IEEE-JDT

One of the best publication platforms for

display researchers, the Journal of Display

Technology, has sadly been discontinued

in December. At SID we are committed to

offering display scientists an efficient and

powerful publication platform of our own:

the Journal of the Society for Information

Display (JSID), published by Wiley and

indexed in the Web of Science.

We are working hard to make JSID the

best journal for display scientists.

Publons

In 2016, Wiley partnered with Publons.

This allows reviewers to get verified credit

for peer review without compromising

their anonymity or infringing upon journal

policies. It is a step in the good direction

to make it possible to reward review work.

Distinguished Papers of Display Week

All Distinguished Papers of Display Week

2017 will have a peer reviewed expanded

version published in JSID. This will both

widen and lengthen their worldwide

visibility and availability. A virtual JSID

issue containing the expanded

distinguished papers will be freely

accessible during the Symposium.

Information about the Journal JSID is published monthly by Wiley.

Subscription fees apply, but all SID

members and student-members have free

online access via sid.org/Publications.aspx

Many universities also have an institutional

subscription.

JSID is indexed in the Web of Science.

Submit your original manuscript online via

mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sid

Author guidelines can be found on the

Journal’s homepage at Wiley Online:

tinyurl.com/jsidhome.

Editorial board: tinyurl.com/jsideb.

Please direct any questions about the

journal to the Editor-in-Chief of JSID at

[email protected]

EarlyView Accepted papers about to be published can

be accessed online via EarlyView:

tinyurl.com/jsidev

October-December 2016 table of

contents

Template effect on reconstruction of blue

phase liquid crystal (pages 593–599) - De-

Chun Hu et al., DOI: 10.1002/jsid.502

A composite model for accurate

colorimetric characterization of liquid

crystal displays (pages 600–610) - Jian-

qing Zhang et al., DOI: 10.1002/jsid.503

Study on directional eye movements in

non-frontal face images for eye-controlled

interaction (pages 611–620) - Min Lin et

al., DOI: 10.1002/jsid.505

Simulation and fabrication of a fast fringe-

field switching liquid crystal with

enhanced surface anchoring enabled by

controlled polymer topology (pages 621–

627) - Libo Weng et al.,

DOI: 10.1002/jsid.506

Anisotropic thin films formation rate on

PEDOT : PSS layer with high azimuthal

anchoring (pages 628–632) - Andrei

Stankevich et al., DOI: 10.1002/jsid.507

Visual comfort enhancement study based

on visual attention detection for

stereoscopic displays (pages 633–640) -

Zhenping Xia et al.,

DOI: 10.1002/jsid.508

Dual layered display that presents auto-

stereoscopic 3D images to multiple

viewers in arbitrary positions (pages 641–

650) - Yeong-Min Ji et al.,

DOI: 10.1002/jsid.509

A wide view auto-stereoscopic 3D display

with an eye-tracking system for enhanced

horizontal viewing position and viewing

distance (pages 657–668) - Daichi Suzuki

et al., DOI:10.1002/jsid.511

GaN-based emissive microdisplays: A very

promising technology for compact, ultra-

high brightness display systems (pages

669–675) - François Templier,

DOI: 10.1002/jsid.516

An adaptive generation method for

electrophoretic display driving waveform

design (pages 676–685) - Fei-Bo Duan et

al., DOI: 10.1002/jsid.512

Direct light field rendering without 2D

image generation (pages 686–695) - Young

Ju Jeong et al., DOI: 10.1002/jsid.513

A reduced reference video quality

assessment of H.264 and mpeg2 codec

based on sharpness metric (pages 696–706)

- Mohamed Ben Amor et al.,

DOI: 10.1002/jsid.517

A novel algorithm for selective current

limit used in AMOLED panel (pages 713–

720) - Chengqiang Huang et al.,

DOI: 10.1002/jsid.518

A study of 3D cover glass design that

improves handheld device drop reliability

(pages 721–725) - Bin Zhang et al.,

DOI: 10.1002/jsid.504

Quality of experience measurement for

light field 3D displays on multilayer LCDs

(pages 726–740) - Shizheng Wang et al.,

DOI: 10.1002/jsid.514

Analysis of standard chromaticity gamut

area metrics (pages 741–746) - Kenichiro

Masaoka, DOI: 10.1002/jsid.519

Super multi-view 3D displays reduce

conflict between accommodative and

vergence responses (pages 747–756) -

Haruki Mizushina et al.,

DOI: 10.1002/jsid.520

Herbert DeSmet Editor-in-Chief

http://sid.org/Publications.aspx

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sid

http://tinyurl.com/jsidhome

http://tinyurl.com/jsideb


http://tinyurl.com/jsidev

Despite these battery challenges, it is worthnoting that at the time of its release, the 5.7-in.quad high-definition 2560 x 1440-pixelOLED display in the Note 7 had the highestresolution for smartphones on the market andcame with an array of impressive performancefeatures that were highly praised by multiplereviewers. ______1https://news.samsung.com/us/Samsung-Electronics-Announces-Cause-of-Galaxy-Note7-Incidents-in-Press-Conference2http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/22/technology/samsung-galaxy-note-7-fires-investigation-batteries/

HDMI Forum AnnouncesVersion 2.1 of the HDMISpecificationThe HDMI Forum, an open trade associationthat guides the direction of high-definitionmultimedia interface (HDMI) technology,recently announced the upcoming release ofVersion 2.1 of the HDMI Specification. Thislatest spec supports a range of higher video

resolutions and refresh rates, including 8K60and 4K120, “dynamic” high dynamic range(HDR), and increased bandwidth with a new48G cable. Details of these highlights follow: • The higher video resolutions and fasterrefresh rates will include 8K60Hz and4K120Hz for immersive viewing andsmooth fast-action detail.• Dynamic HDR is designed to ensure thatevery moment of a video is displayed at itsbest values for depth, detail, brightness,contrast, and wider color gamuts – on ascene-by-scene or even a frame-by-framebasis.• 48G cables enable up to 48Gbps bandwidthfor uncompressed HDMI 2.1 feature sup-port, including 8K video with HDR. The new specification will be released early inQ2 2017.3______3www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_1/index.aspx

SDVoE Alliance Launches at European Trade Show In February, the new Software Defined Videoover Ethernet (SDVoE) Alliance officiallylaunched at the Integrated Systems Europe(ISE) show in Amsterdam. The SDVoEAlliance is a nonprofit consortium of technol-ogy providers collaborating to standardize theadoption of Ethernet to transport AV signals inprofessional AV environments, and to createan ecosystem around SDVoE technology thatallows software to define AV applications. The founding members of the Alliance are

AptoVision, Aquantia, Christie Digital, NET-GEAR, Sony, and ZeeVee. Just prior to ISE,the Alliance announced that eight additionalcompanies had joined: Arista, Aurora Multi-media, DVIGear, Grandbeing, HDCVT, IDKCorporation, Techlogix Networx, and Xilinx.Additional new members are welcome.4 n______4http://sdvoe.org/

8D. Volz, “Review of organic light-emittingdiodes with thermally activated delayed fluo-rescence emitters for energy-efficient sustain-able light sources and displays,” J. PhotonicsEnergy 6, 020901 (2016).9H. Yersin, A. F. Rausch, R. Czerwieniec, T. Hofbeck, T. Fischer, “The triplet state oforgano-transition metal compounds. Tripletharvesting and singlet harvesting for efficientOLEDs,” Coord. Chem. Rev. 255, 2622–2652(2011).10D. Zhang, M. Cai, Y. Zhang, D. Zhang, L. Duan, “Sterically shielded blue thermallyactivated delayed fluorescence emitters withimproved efficiency and stability,” Mater.Horiz. 3, 145–151 (2016).11H. Tanaka, K. Shizu, H. Miyazaki, C.Adachi, “Efficient green thermally activateddelayed fluorescence (TADF) from a phenox-azine–triphenyltriazine (PXZ–TRZ) deriva-tive,” Chem. Commun. 48, 11392 (2012).12S. Youn Lee, T. Yasuda, H. Nomura, C.Adachi, “High-efficiency organic light-emit-ting diodes utilizing thermally activateddelayed fluorescence from triazine-baseddonor–acceptor hybrid molecules,” Appl.Phys. Lett. 101, 093306 (2012).13CYNORA GmbH, October 2016, pressrelease, www.cynora.com14G. Li, T. Fleetham, E. Turner, X. C. Hang, J. Li, “Highly efficient and stable narrow-band phosphorescent emitters for OLEDapplications,” Adv. Opt. Mater. 3, 390–397(2015).15Y. Zhang, J. Lee, S. R. Forrest, “Tenfoldincrease in the lifetime of blue phosphorescentorganic light-emitting diodes,” Nat. Commun.5, 1–7 (2014).16K. P. Klubek, C. W. Tang, L. J. Rothberg,“Investigation of blue phosphorescent organiclight-emitting diode host and dopant stabil-ity,” Org. Electron. 15, 1312–1316 (2014).17J. W. Sun, K. Kim, K. C. Moon, J. H. Lee, J. Kim, “A highly efficient sky-blue fluores-cent organic light emitting diode based onmixed cohost system for thermally activateddelayed fluorescence emitter (2CzPN),” ACSAppl. Mater. Interfaces 8, 9806–9810 (2016).18H. Nakanotani, K. Masui, J. Nishide, T. Shi-bata, C. Adachi, “Promising operational sta-bility of high-efficiency organic light-emittingdiodes based on thermally activated delayedfluorescence,” Sci. Rep. 3, 2127 (2013). n


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industry news



Planar Systems, a display systems manu-facturer, announced late last year that ithad entered into a definitive merger agree-ment to acquire NaturalPoint, a globalleader in optical tracking and motion capture solutions, for $125 million in anall-cash transaction. Planar itself wasacquired by Leyard in 2015.

In February 2017, BASF, the multi-nationalchemical manufacturing company based in Germany, acquired the private companyRolic AG, which is headquartered inAllschwil, Switzerland. Rolic makes optical films for LCD and OLED panelmakers. Both companies agreed not to disclose the terms of the acquisition.

OSRAM acquired Maneri-Agraz, a Texas-based lighting services provider, in February 2017. OSRAM is a global lighting and technology company head-quartered in Germany. The terms of theacquisition had not been announced atpress time.

Merger and Acquisition Briefs

Submit Your News ReleasesPlease send all press releases and new productannouncements to:Jenny DonelanInformation Display Magazine411 Lafayette Street, Suite 201New York, NY 10003Fax: 212.460.5460e-mail: [email protected]

ID Industry News Issue2 p3,44_Layout 1 3/4/2017 11:46 AM Page 44

http://www.cynora.com


https://news.samsung.com/us/Samsung-Electronics-Announces-Cause-of-Galaxy-Note7-Incidents-in-Press-Conference

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/22/technology/samsung-galaxy-note-7-fires-investigation-batteries/

http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_1/index.aspx

http://sdvoe.org/

Be the Best – Win a Best in Show AwardEach year, fewer than half a dozen Best inShow winners are chosen by an independentpanel of display experts who review theproducts, prototypes,and processesnominated for theawards on theshow floor at Dis-play Week. Win-ners are selected forgreat technology, butalso for the way theydisplay that technol-ogy on the show floor. Winning Best in Showexhibits have the ability to excite displayexperts and members of the general publicand press alike.Best in Show is open to all exhibitors on

the show floor during Display Week 2017,and prizes will be awarded regardless ofexhibit size. Self-nominations are encouraged!For details and to download a nominationform, visit:

www.sid.org/About/Awards/BestinShowAwards.aspx

EuroDisplay Calls for PapersEuroDisplay 2017 will take place in Berlin,Germany, this fall. EuroDisplay is uniqueamong European conferences for its emphasison displays, electronics, and the ways inwhich both these impact society. This year’sconference, held in conjunction with the Institute of Physics, will focus on 30 differenttypes of displays, materials, and applications, including transparent conductors, quantum dots, printed electronics, graphene, perovskites,OLEDs, uses for liquid crystals beyond displays, 3D displays, and much more. The conference will take place October 31

to November 2 at the Meliá Berlin, which islocated in the heart of the city, just a short distance from the Brandenburg Gate, MuseumIsland, and Alexanderplatz. A two-day exhibi-tion of products and techniques will be held in conjunction with the technical conference. Abstracts for papers are due June 1, 2017.

For information about the conference, including submissions, visit:

eurodisplay2017.iopconfs.org


NEWSSOCIETY FORINFORMATION

DISPLAY

Display Week Debuts Women in Tech Forum Display Week 2017 will host its first-ever “Women in Tech” forum this May in Los Angeles. “I think 2017 is THE year of women in tech events,” says Women in Tech committee member Tara Akhavan, noting that other technical venues such as the Silicon Valley Forum in March are hosting women-centric events. (Akhavan, CTO and co-founder of IRYStec,has more to say about the role of women in technology in this issue’s Market InsightsQ&A feature.) “I look forward to the day when there is so much diversity that we do not need a

women-specific panel,” says Akhavan. “Until then, I want to keep encouraging morewomen technologists into high-tech societies. I am passionate about this panel and happythat SID is emphasizing this important issue at Display Week 2017.”

The forum will feature five experts who will offer their unique insights and experiencesas women in technology fields traditionally populated by men. This is a great mix of panelists whose discussion is sure to be thought provoking and inspiring.

• Niaz Abdolrahim, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Rochester

• Julie Brown, Senior Vice President and CTO, Universal Display Corporation• Heidi Dohse, Google Cloud Platform Program Manager, Google• Candice Brown Elliott, Vice President, Technology, Leap Motion• Laura Rea, Senior Technology Program Manager, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory

The panel will be moderated by Rashmi Rao, senior director, advanced engineering forHarman and program director for the 2017 Technical Symposium at Display Week.Women who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs or leaders in a technology businessshould certainly plan to attend this informative and educational event. The Women in TechPanel (www.displayweek.org/2017/Program/WomeninTech.aspx) takes place Wednesday,May 24, 2017, at 4 pm, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Niaz Abdolrahim Julie Brown Heidi Dohse

Rashmi RaoCandice Brown Elliott Laura Rea

ID SID News Issue2 p45_Layout 1 3/4/2017 12:16 PM Page 45

http://www.sid.org/About/Awards/BestinShowAwards.aspx

http://www.displayweek.org/2017/Program/WomeninTech.aspx

http://eurodisplay2017.iopconfs.org

I encourage you to start with Ion’s Guest Editor’s note titled “Advances in Materials forDisplay Applications.” If this is an area ofinterest for you, then this will be your year atthe Symposium, with almost 40 presentationsin the Display Materials and Processes tracksalone. Many more papers related to materialsappear in other tracks as well. One of thehottest topics is self-emitting nano-materialssuch as quantum dots (QDs), which we haveheard about before, and perovskites, which aremuch newer to most of us. In our first Frontline Technology article,

“Emerging Solution-Processable LuminescentNanomaterials in Hybrid Structures OfferNew Solutions for Displays and Lighting,”authors Yajie Dong, Hao Chen, Juan He, andShin-Tson Wu explain the state of the art forQDs, provide a detailed explanation of similaremerging optoelectronic materials utilizingthe perovskite structure, and describe all thechallenges of incorporating these materialsinto working light-emitting systems. One ofthe really clever things I learned from thisarticle was about the authors’ efforts to utilizethe natural expansion and contraction proper-ties of polymer films to encapsulate per-ovskites. Essentially, they describe a processby which solvents infused with perovskitesare introduced to expand the molecular structure of a polymer film. Once the filmexpands, the solvent, including the per-ovskites, becomes embedded in the film. As the solvent is then evaporated away, thepolymer matrix returns to its normal size andforms a coherent barrier layer around theremaining perovskite structures. Imagine: You simply expand the film, infuse it with the emitting nano-material, and let it dry out.You are left with a self-infused perovskitefilm providing all the needed environmentalprotections for the nano-material. It sounds sosimple. I wish I had thought of it! Another hot topic in this field is called ther-

mally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF),and it represents a way to achieve blue emit-ters in OLED displays with virtually 100%potential efficiency from electrical energy tolight-energy conversion. Today, as we know,OLEDs make blue-light energy using fluores-cent materials that are capable of only 25%efficiency. Red and green light can be madefrom phosphorescent materials with 100%efficiency, but those materials are not suffi-cient for blue emission, hence the need andopportunity for TADF technology. In his

article, “Thermally Activated Delayed Fluo-rescence Is a Key New Technology for OLEDDisplays,” author Daniel Volz describes thechallenges in today’s OLED materials, the science behind TADF materials, and theopportunities, including what we might expectto see in the near future. I’ve been reading and following the OLED field for virtually my entire career and it fascinates me howmuch more work is still ahead of us despitehow far we have come. This is another step inwhat will undoubtedly be an area of intensiveactivity and interest for years to come.

Symposium PreviewTurning our attention now to the other majortheme for this issue, the preview of the annualtechnical program known as the InternationalSymposium at Display Week 2017, it’s worthnoting that the industry must love to come toLos Angeles because once again the programcommittee saw over 700 abstracts submittedfor consideration for one of the 311 oral and240 poster presentation slots available. I liketo cite the numbers because it provides a con-text to the scale and depth of the event, whichin fact is just one part of the overall DisplayWeek program. If you are looking for proofthat innovations are plentiful in the world ofdisplays, this will certainly do it. Aside fromthe sheer numbers, the rich array of technicalfocus areas such as AR/VR, Digital Signage,Display Materials and Processes, and Wear-ables will surely make for one of the mostexciting symposiums ever. Starting with theseminars on Sunday, May 21, this year willpack more technical and business content intoone week than any other display-industryevent in the world. To start planning your visit, consult the

Display Week web site www.displayweek.org/2017/Attendee.aspx to register, then sit backand enjoy our Symposium Preview, “AR/VR,Digital Signage, Display Materials, and Wear-ables Headline Display Week 2017 TechnicalProgram in Los Angeles,” compiled by JennyDonelan. I believe my favorite sessions mayturn out to be those focused on digital signageand high dynamic range displays, or maybethe flexible and stretchable electronic fabricsbeing discussed in the wearables sessions, ormaybe the great papers we accepted this yearfor the display metrology tracks, including thenext generation of the ICDM measurementstandards, or maybe…. Well, you get the idea.The exciting topics and in-depth technical

content is un-matched anywhere else. (Don’tforget to check out the handy “Display WeekOverview” and “Symposium at a Glance”pages in the preview article.)

Displays at CESCES is the annual Consumer ElectronicsShow (CES) in Las Vegas, which features thelatest in actual products, including all mannerof TVs, portable devices, wearables, andeverything else you can think of that mightuse a display. CES is an important barometerfor our industry and it’s hard to find any majortechnical focus area that does not ultimatelylead to a consumer application in some way. Ifyou want to make a business in displays, youwill almost always need to find a commercialconsumer and know what their un-met needsare. CES is one of those annual events thatprovides that context. But even if you didn’tget there don’t worry – ID has your back! Ken Werner was onsite, and he did the hardwork for all of us by compiling what he calls“The 11 Best Display-Related Finds at CES2017” in his Show Review article. One of thenotable things this year is something that Ihave predicted before: Once the display getsreally good, the exciting story becomes oneabout the products that it enables instead. AsKen says in the beginning of his article “…displays were [more] important as enablingcomponents in larger systems, notably auto-motive Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs),Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS),and autonomous vehicles.” So, what wereKen’s notable 11 things? Well, read the articleand enjoy finding out.

Q&A with IRYStecTwo years ago at the I-Zone exhibit, I wasintroduced to a very talented young womannamed Tara Akhavan, who, along with herequally talented business partner AfsoonSoudi, were showing a new technology theywere working on to dynamically enhance thevisual performance of displays under varyingambient lighting conditions. I say “dynami-cally” because in the past we’ve generallybeen able to manually adjust things like colortemperature, contrast, luminance, etc. forvarying conditions. In some cases, manufac-turers have also included ambient light sensors for dynamic backlight and contrastadjustments. However, what Tara and Afsoonhave done is taken a careful look at how thehuman visual system works, and developed



editorial

ID Editorial Issue2 p2,46-47_Layout 1 3/4/2017 10:26 AM Page 46

http://www.displayweek.org/2017/Attendee.aspx

algorithms that produce a consistent visualexperience under widely varying ambient con-ditions. Their approach does this in real-time,so as you walk from inside your office to out-side for your lunch break, your phone or tabletdisplay should look the same to you. Theyeven provide for a calibration to match yourindividual visual preferences, which is great,because the response of my 55-year old-eyesis very different from that of the eyes of myadult children. We wanted to know how thisinnovation was coming along and we werealso curious about their experiences as womenentrepreneurs in the display field, so wereached out to them at their company, calledIRYStec, for an interview that you can find inthis issue, “Q&A with IRYStec,” by JennyDonelan. I think you will enjoy learning about their progress and reading their candidobservations about their experiences.

I hope you enjoy this issue as much as weenjoyed putting it together. Display Week isjust around the corner – start planning! n


EXH IB I T NOW AT

EXHIBITION DATES:May 23–25, 2017Los Angeles Convention CenterLos Angeles , CA, USAEXHIBITION HOURS:Tuesday, May 23 10:30 am – 6:00 pmWednesday, May 249:00 am – 5:00 pmThursday, May 259:00 am – 1:00 pm

CONTACTS FOR EXHIBITS ANDSPONSORSHIPS:Jim BuckleyExhibition and Sponsorship Sales, Europe and [email protected] +1 (203) 502-8283Sue ChungExhibition and Sponsorship Sales, Asia [email protected] +1 (408) 489-9596 VISIT

INFORMATIONDISPLAY ON-LINEFor daily displayindustry news

www.informationdisplay.org


guest editorial

JOIN SIDIn every specialty you will find SID members as leading contributors to their profession.


Due to the large overlap with semiconduc-tor quantum dot (QD) applications, theauthors also review the status of QD develop-ment and compare the merits of perovskiteand QD materials for display applications.Notably, the thesis proposed by ProfessorDong is one of finding synergies betweenthese two material systems and pursuingapplications that combine them in order toachieve near-term impact in displays andlighting applications.

For more details about these recent excitingdevelopments in perovskite and quantum dotnanomaterials, we recommend this article prepared by Yajie Dong, Hao Chen, Juan He,and Shin-Tson Wu from UCF.

In the second article, Daniel Voltz fromCYNORA gives an overview of thermallyactivated delayed fluorescence (TADF) andthe development of highly efficient TADFemitter materials for OLED applications. Similar to the introduction of phosphorescentemitters, which made possible nearly 100%efficient electroluminescence (EL) from small

molecule organics, TADF offers an alternativestrategy for molecular design that enables efficient organic EL.

The efficiency improvement needaddressed by TADF has to do with maximiz-ing the fraction of electrically injected elec-trons (e–) and holes (h+) that recombine in theemitter molecule in such a way that theirenergy is converted to light rather than lost tononradiative processes, e.g. to heat. Due totheir typical molecular nature, organic emit-ters receiving e-h pairs transition into a mix ofexcited electronic states called singlet (S) andtriplet (T) which, importantly, are formed in a1:3 ratio (S:T). The S excited state has a netspin moment of 0 (i.e. opposite e– and h+ spinorientations) that matches the ground state ofthe emitter molecule, which is why S excitedstates can quickly and efficiently relax byemitting a photon. T excited states, on theother hand, have a net spin moment of 1 (i.e. parallel e– and h+ spins), which, by differing from the ground state, are forbiddenfrom relaxing through light emission. Instead, molecules in this unfavorable high-energystate typically lose their energy through non-radiative mechanisms, such as heat genera-tion. TADF represents a mechanism forconverting T into S excited states and subse-quently enabling efficient EL. This mecha-nism is possible in specially designed organicmolecules that have a smaller energy differ-ence between S and T excited states than theavailable thermal energy during device operation (which thus allows spontaneous T → S excited state conversion).

The team at CYNORA is one of the pioneers in developing molecules with high-efficiency TADF that are designed for OLEDdisplay applications. Please read the articleprepared by Dr. Daniel Voltz to learn moreabout this exciting area.

I hope you enjoy both these articles aboutexciting new materials. I hope to see you all in Los Angeles in May. n

Ion Bita currently serves as the 2017 Chair ofthe Display Materials and Processes specialtopic track for the Society for InformationDisplay’s technical symposium at DisplayWeek, and is a member and past Chair of the SID Display Manufacturing Committee. He can be reached at ion.bita@ gmail.com.

ID Editorial Issue2 p2,46-47_Layout 1 3/6/2017 2:44 PM Page 47






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