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Quantum Dots Will Make Flexible Displays

Posted by Unknown on from the quantum-ice-cream-of-the-future dept.

judgecorp writes "Quantum dots are small semiconductors, whose properties are defined by their size and shape. British nanotechnology firm Nanoco has found they are ideal for displays, allowing the possibility of screens that can be rolled up — and which also use far less of the hazardous chemicals found in normal screens." In addition to being Cadmium free (a problem in the EU where the exemption for Cadmium in displays expires in 2014), they directly emit light using less power than traditional filtered color LCDs.

29 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Resolution by cyachallenge · · Score: 2

    The tiny crystals, which are 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair

    Think of what resolution sizes we can get with pixels in this scale.

    1. Re:Resolution by interval1066 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Think of the resolutions the human eye won't be able to distinguish; dots the size of percentage of a human hair to dots the size of potatoes, its all just a blur to our eyes. But hey, who am I to poop on progress on any scale?

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    2. Re:Resolution by timeOday · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Might be great for a head-mounted display though, or augmented-reality contact lenses. Now that voice command is starting to catch on, the largest remaining hindrance to miniaturization is the display.

    3. Re:Resolution by Gaygirlie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      or augmented-reality contact lenses

      The problem is transmitting the pixel data to the lenses wirelessly while also simultaneously feeding them power somehow: you can't really have wires going to your contact lenses. If that could be solved in a reasonable manner then sure, it would be great. I've been thinking to myself that it'd be neat to have some sort of a small plug behind your ear into which you can plug in a small audio cable, and then have the audio transmitted directly to your inner ear through cranial resonance. Now, combine that with augmented-reality contact lenses/glasses and you've got a really, really powerful system useful for things ranging from entertainment to industrial uses to military uses and even remotely-guided surgeries.

    4. Re:Resolution by nschubach · · Score: 2

      I'm pretty sure contact lenses would not be something your eye can focus on. I'd be happy if it were wrong, but I think it's too close to be able to see anything but a blurry mess.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    5. Re:Resolution by Gaygirlie · · Score: 2

      They are at a fixed length from your eye, the distance doesn't vary. Thus to my understanding it should be possible to have the image appear sharp depending on where you look. And if the lenses could detect how close or far you're looking the image could obviously be adjusted accordingly, thereby making them work at any focus range. But as I said, that's how I understand it, I could be wrong, too.

    6. Re:Resolution by timeOday · · Score: 3, Informative

      These guys recently pulled it off with wireless power transmission to an antenna that goes around the rim of the lens. Just one monochrome pixel though! And a visible wire to that pixel.

    7. Re:Resolution by EdIII · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The answer is not contacts. Direct retinal contact only separated by a thin transparent film. Bypass everything else.

      Use the rest of the space in the eye for equipment. Processing, storage, CCD, power generation, etc. With a high enough resolution CCD (or equivalent) you create a cybernetic implant with incredible vision. Overlay any kind of visual information you want on to any surface you can see, or have it hover in front of you.

    8. Re:Resolution by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Funny

      And if you see strange things, you don't know whether to go to the psychiatrist for hallucinations, or to tech support for someone hacking your augmented reality system.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    9. Re:Resolution by Tapewolf · · Score: 3, Informative

      Think of the resolutions the human eye won't be able to distinguish; dots the size of percentage of a human hair to dots the size of potatoes, its all just a blur to our eyes. But hey, who am I to poop on progress on any scale?

      What it would mean is that you could support multiple resolutions like on a CRT display. The fact that an LCD has to have a 'native resolution' at all is a nuisance for things like games. That and this thing should sidestep the horrible contrast problems LCD has.

    10. Re:Resolution by jovius · · Score: 2

      Even though the eyes couldn't distinguish individual dots the adjacent dots could be used to create interesting color and other illusions - maybe depth?

    11. Re:Resolution by FairAndHateful · · Score: 3, Funny

      And if you see strange things, you don't know whether to go to the psychiatrist for hallucinations, or to tech support for someone hacking your augmented reality system.

      Oh, I got these contacts a while ago, but for some reason I keep seeing a purple ape that claims to be my "buddy". It's been very confusing, and driving has been really dicey.

  2. Great... by Haxagon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now leaving my phone in the bathroom means someone will mistake it for toilet paper rather than returning it!

    1. Re:Great... by TheInternetGuy · · Score: 4, Funny

      I don't know, maybe you should choose a different wallpaper?

      --
      If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
    2. Re:Great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I wish you Apple employees would stop visiting /.

  3. Cadmium by wanzeo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    First I've heard about Cadmium in LCDs. Anyone know more? The wikipedia article says it's usually inhaled, but it's pretty vague as to how it causes problems.

    1. Re:Cadmium by NEDHead · · Score: 5, Funny

      The inhalation is a crucial step in the manufacture. A well trained technician can inhale, then spew forth in a finely detailed pattern to create the final image. One of the most exalted practitioners was able to create not only images of Christ, but also Mary, and Colonel Sanders.

    2. Re:Cadmium by artor3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think some reporter got confused. Cadmium hasn't seen much use in displays since the early 80s, because there are better, non-toxic materials that have been discovered since then. I think it's still used in a few applications, but nothing Joe Consumer is likely to buy. Where cadmium is often used is in quantum dots, which has thus far made quantum dots unusable for most consumer applications. That appears to be one of the innovations coming out of the research here... quantum dots that don't use cadmium (or other heavy metals), and are thus safe to use in the creation of the flexible display that everyone's wanted for a while.

    3. Re:Cadmium by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, the reporter (and then the submitter) somehow interpreted the company's press release about a cadmium free QD-LED display to mean normal LCD displays contained cadmium. And then to make it worse the submitter tried to expand on this misinformation by quoting one exemption for a single company's special purpose LED and wrongly applying that to a whole industry and regulatory body. Sigh.

  4. You insensitive clod! by PPH · · Score: 2

    I've got trouble enough reading things on little iPhone and netbook displays. And now you want me to try to read off of a quantum dot?!!

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  5. Why compare to LCDs? by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We have a potential replacement for LCDs in the works already, and its far more advanced along the R&D chain.

    How do these displays compare to OLED which can also be rolled and are also less toxic in their production?

    1. Re:Why compare to LCDs? by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Because they are still working on making stable chemistry for OLED? The clue is in the name - O means organic. Organic molecules decay. The colours on OLED screens therefore fade with time and with UV light.

      They can also consume MORE power than LCD under certain circumstances - the light doesn't need to pass through a filter, true, and they are much more efficient at displaying a mostly black screen (because the OLEDs just switch off while the LCD still generates all that backlight and then blocks it), but in a predominantly white picture, such as is common in computer applications, they can consume more power than the LCD does. I guess that lots of little LED elements are less efficient than a few big ones.

      Quantum dots are teensy little aggregations of inorganic chemicals, so they shouldn't suffer from the same decay problems as OLED.

    2. Re:Why compare to LCDs? by theskipper · · Score: 2

      The 50% lifetime degradation for red and green is in the hundreds of thousands of hours for PHOLED. It's in the tens of thousands of hours for 95%, far longer than the usable life of actual products on the market:

      http://www.universaldisplay.com/default.asp?contentID=604

      "Sky blue" PHOLED has a sufficient lifetime but dark blue is a long way off. So fluorescent blue is used which is lower efficiency but compensates by having a much higher lifetime. This is the set of chemicals currently being used in all Samsung OLED displays currently on the market (almost all of their phones; TVs and tablets next year).

      The larger issue has been encapsulation which is solved for rigid displays. For flexible displays, it's essentially solved.

      I realize you probably know all this but your post made it sound like there are still problems with PHOLED lifetimes. So this is a synopsis for those readers unfamiliar with the technology.

  6. Heard it before.... by Brad1138 · · Score: 2

    "ideal for displays, allowing the possibility of screens that can be rolled up"

    They said that 10 years ago with OLED technology, still waiting on that...

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
  7. All hype... by AlexEiffel · · Score: 4, Funny

    I looked at a few pics, but they didn't look any better than the monitor I'm already using.

  8. Old news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nanosys in Palo Alto (http://www.nanosysinc.com/) has been involved in designing quantum dots for display purposes for a while. The point isn't the size of the dots, but rather that one can tune the output wavelengths to match the filters on the front of LCD displays. This increases the efficiency measurably, vastly increasing the color gamut that can be displayed (3x more color according to their website). In my opinion, this is a REAL revolution in display technology!

    I have no interest (beyond intellectual) or investments in Nanosys - just came across the product.

  9. Quantum ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    So, is it basically uncertain what it will be displayed then ?

  10. Related question for all the optics gurus... by SpazmodeusG · · Score: 2

    In a hologram, tightly packed alternating dark and light regions produce constructive/destructive interference, causing a 3D effect. If the pixels can be made close enough is it possible to recreate this effect on a monitor?

    If so there's an excuse to go beyond human perceptible detail.

  11. Re:article or advertisement? by delinear · · Score: 2

    Plus, I've read stories about screens with amazing resolutions you can roll up like paper at least every three or four months for the past decade. At this point, stop telling us it's possible and actually focus on getting one to market; it's starting to sound awfully like vapourware.