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Science Technology

MIT Develops Quantum-Dot OLEDs 158

Posted by timothy from the cool-wallpaper dept.
deglr6328 writes "Researchers at MIT have developed a new type of Organic Light emitting Diode (OLED) using Cadmium Selenium Quantum Dots as the electron-hole recombination layer. It is widely believed that the next generation of flexible flat panel display technologies will be self luminous (non-backlit) organic light emitting diodes. However, the efficiency and lifespan of both small molecule and polymer type OLEDs, to date, has been poor for small wavelength emitting compounds. Using quantum dots as the emissive layer in OLEDs potentially solves both of these problems since they are inorganic and won't degrade, and they have a theoretical maximum quantum efficiency of near 100%. Mmmmm ... can't wait to buy my first roll-up display!"
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MIT Develops Quantum-Dot OLEDs More

MIT Develops Quantum-Dot OLEDs

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  • Cool... but when? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by httpamphibio.us ( 579491 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @07:48AM (#5118003)
    Haven't roll-up displays been "two years away" for about seven years now?

    I love the concept... but really, shouldn't we have at least one low quality, high priced, first generation consumer product by now?

    • Right now..already (Score:4, Informative)

      by hfastedge ( 542013 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @07:53AM (#5118024) Homepage Journal
      For some reasons the companies are just dumbass anal about it. They're have been flexible "e-paper" displays since 2000 as trials in federated department stores macys.

      2 main companies currently lead the pack, BOTH have production facilities:

      http://www.gyriconmedia.com/ [gyriconmedia.com] Uses beads. berkeley->Xerox-parc->private. production fac. in michigan.

      http://www.eink.com/ [eink.com] Uses organics but no where near as small as quantum dot-anything. MIT -> private. Manufacturing facility in Japan.

      • Re:Right now..already (Score:5, Informative)

        by NoNeeeed ( 157503 ) <slashNO@SPAMpaulleader.co.uk> on Monday January 20, 2003 @09:23AM (#5118337)
        Which part of "self luminous" is causing you problems? Or did you not actually read the submission, let alone the article.

        The above links both point to "e-paper" type systems, which are monochrome, and require an external light source. These are great for a lot of applications, but I wouldn't want a laptop display built out of one.

        OLEDs and their ilk will produce their own light, and opperate with many colours at high speeds.

        Essentially it is horse-for-courses. E-ink is great for certain applications where power is critical (watches, cell-phones, even e-newspapers) and where update speeds are not critical (I beleive they are all 'mechanical' in some way), but OLEDs and similar will be necessary if you want full colour rapidly moving images. To equate the two technologies is to be somewhat disingenuous.

        A random googled OLED link. [kodak.com]

        Paul

        • Color is in the works (Score:3, Interesting)

          by jeti ( 105266 )
          E-Ink is working on color displays.

          The pages aren't clear on how they try to achive
          this. But I think they're using microcapsules filled
          with C, M or Y colored liquid and also black and
          white pigments with opposite electrostatic charges.

      • Re:Right now..already (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        E-Ink displays are not even in the same market as OLED's.

        E-ink displays refresh very slowly but maintain the picture once refreshed. So no moving images, no mouse cursor, ...

        Their main market is signs and e-book readers.
    • I thought this interesting technology [eink.com] would also have such first-generation products too...

    • Money answer? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:55AM (#5118225)
      I wonder sometimes if "the powers that be" aren't just holding back on some of the new LCD-like display technologies because they've got a lot of money tied up in LCD technology that's just starting to show a return on investment.

      And there's the whole recession thing, which has limited sales and maybe curtailed manufacturers' desire to invest in converting plants and equipment to make the new displays.

      I know it seems a little conspiratorial, and the answer probably that the technology isn't reliable or mass producable yet, but I still can't help but wonder if the economy picks up we'll see from Apple or someone else not afraid to roll out an expensive 1st gen product and then see it approach commodity levels a couple of years later.

      Although I keep asking myself why a 13" LCD TV sells for $800 and a 17" LCD monitor is $500. That's a market contrast I *don't* get, and the explanations I've been given about the cost of tuners and IR control logic don't add up, especially when a tube 20" is $170.
      • No kidding, I'd rather get a nice 17" LCD and a TV card for my PC. Add in a nice RF remote and POOF! LCD TV for less then $800.

      • Re:Money answer? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Trepalium ( 109107 )
        Easy enough. Buy the $500 LCD and add on this Viewsonic device [viewsonic.com] for about $150, and you have a complete television system, including remote control. Although a little bigger than that 13" TV, it still costs less. Or there's the next step up [viewsonic.com], which does more filtering for about $400. I'm sure other LCD manufacturers have similar products.

        There's a little more involved with an LCD TV compared to a CRT TV. You have to deinterlace and filter the output, doing a 3:2 pulldown if needed, and so on. Unlike an interlaced CRT TV, interlaced images will look very bad on a progressive display like an LCD or computer monitor. That's one of the reasons most TV tuner cards tend to only capture one field of the frame instead of both.

      • Re:Money answer? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by u19925 ( 613350 )
        LCD TVs cost more, because of low production (1/10th of LCD monitor, 1/100th of Tube TV). The second part is that, you have to now miniatuarize the TV components too (monitor doesn't have to do, neither do tube TV). Expect to see the cost difference between LCD and tube TV to drop below 2:1 by next year as the volume ramps up.

  • roll up displays (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Gary Franczyk ( 7387 )
    I hope they are as sharp and readable as the current LCD screens. One great advantage to LCD screens is that they are significantly easier on the eyes than CRT monitors.

    If this new technology is cheaper or has some other substantial improvement over LCDs, most manufacturers may stop selling LCD monitors or laptops using LCD screens. Those of us that look for easy to read screens may lose out.
    • Whether this technology works out or not, Plasma will probably kill LCD in a few years anyway. If not that LED displays will take over. And there is always DLP.
      • Plasma will never win because it isn't an acronym. ;) See, plasma sounds scary (big ball of burning sun etc etc) even though it's not whereas an LCD or DLP or OLED or even one of these CRT things (smirk) must be better becase it sounds "sciency" (tm)

        e-paper is good because it has an e- first. Plasma fails to excite.

        Plus, now that Samsung have their huge LCD facility running they are making 40" screens which are thinner and lihgter than the equivalent plasmas whilst having a better colour fidelity, longer life (probably) and no burn-in. DLP needs space like back projection to project the image so isn't really equivalent.

    • Re:roll up displays (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:30AM (#5118130)
      Actually you'd probably be amazed how easy a good CRT is on the eyes. The problem is many people have cheap CRTs adn also often run their CRTs at 60Hz. A good CRT running at 85+Hz is really sharp, and at this point has superior colour to an LCD.

  • Amazing technology (Score:5, Funny)

    by gazbo ( 517111 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @07:51AM (#5118014)
    Researchers at MIT have developed a new type of Organic Light emitting Diode

    OLEDs potentially solves both of these problems since they are inorganic

    Given this is quantum physics, perhaps this is an example of the uncertainty principle? Inquiring minds want to know...

    • Re:Amazing technology (Score:5, Informative)

      by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:04AM (#5118054)
      Sorry, I should have been more clear in my post I guess. The E-H (ie. light emitting) recombination layer will be inorganic CdSe quantum dots but the charge transport layers will be organic semiconductors.
    • You wouldn't know whether it's organic or not until you opened the box.

    • Organic? (Score:2, Funny)

      by giel ( 554962 )

      I wonder what - except from electric power - systems will consume in the near future. I try to feed my notebook bread and cheese, but it doesn't seem to be very fond of it.

      Or... organic. What kind of life are we talking here? Do they kill animals to create these displays? Damn, I know some people think it's stupid, but I'm a vegetarian.

      • Re:Organic? (Score:3, Informative)

        by blincoln ( 592401 )
        What kind of life are we talking here? Do they kill animals to create these displays? Damn, I know some people think it's stupid, but I'm a vegetarian.

        "Organic" just means "[a] compound... containing Carbon atoms" [krysstal.com].

        This isn't like the blood that's used to make plywood or what have you.

        • I'd like to correct that, any thing that is living or has lived [krysstal.com]:
          In science, Organic can be a biological or chemical term. In Biology it means any thing that is living or has lived. The opposite is Non-Organic. In Chemistry, an Organic compound is one containing Carbon atoms. The opposite term is Inorganic.

          • This is a manufacturing process though, so we're using terms from chemistry, not biology. This is evidenced by the use of the term "inorganic" as opposed to "non-organic."
          • I don't think that's actually true. There has been talk about inorganic life [slashdot.org] before here on slashdot and it seems that even biologists consider life that isn't based on carbon to be inorganic. It's probably more that biologists don't consider a benzene ring I make in my lab to be organic, whereas in the strict chemistry terminology it is an organic compound.
    • If its organic, it must be from another planet. Cadmium wasn't an organic molecule and is toxic to animal life on Earth last time I checked.
      • Uh, Cyanide is organic, and it will take you down a lot faster than cadmium will. All organic means in this context is "contains carbon." Plenty of organic molecules are toxic to animal life on Earth.

  • roll up display? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, 2003 @07:51AM (#5118015)
    This is fantastic. In 5 years I'll be able to pin up my TV with thumb tacks right next to my tattered SG poster. This opens up a whole new relm of potential practical jokes for people who don't know it's a display. ;)

  • Like those screens in Total Recall (Score:3, Insightful)

    by forged ( 206127 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @07:52AM (#5118018) Homepage Journal
    Remember the movie Total Recall [imdb.com]? At breakfast we saw Doug and his wife surrounded by these displays seamelessly integrated to the walls, such that they had either Lake View, Montains View, etc. Or just regular TV programs captioned in a corner of the screen.

    Hopefully this is the kind of technology breakthrough that will make it possible to get these massive flat screens in our living rooms one day!

  • wearable computer (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, 2003 @07:52AM (#5118019)
    now you too can be a walking billboard! imagine 2000x6000 pixel ads right on your tshirt!

    the more i hear, the less i believe. show me or screw it.
    • but imagine if your "smart" BDUs have a software error and suddenly give you a full body "blue screen of death!"

    • Re:wearable computer (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Omkar ( 618823 )
      People already pay for the priviledge of sporting corporate logos. The days of human billboards are already here.
      I wish I had something funny to say about this, but it's just sad, folks.
      • thats why i dont buy nike. I saw in macy's a sweatshirt that was really nice. then I looked at the price - and saw that it was $65. I thought "how the hell could this be $65." then I saw it was nike...

        I try to buy clothes that have no logo.
    • The truth is, wearable displays will be a huge target marget in the second or third generation of these devices.

      A significant amount of money is spent by teenagers and young adults to buy tech gadgets. Just look at the massive amounts spent on video games and personal audio devices [by these demographics].

      Now considering the number of people in this group that also go to parties/concerts/raves, I dont think it will be long before your shirt has a wireless hookup so that the DJ at whatever club you're at can project a Geiss/Milkdrop/whatever visualization not just with light, but through your clothes. Imagine being pill'ing and looking around to see the world itself as the visualization?

      Also, lets not forget the obligatory link back to the concept of adaptive camoflauge for military/police? Anyone go the url handy?

  • What next gen screen need... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yes, LCD's are easier on the eyes...but working all the time in front of a screen seems to change my skin color to a pale green'ish.
    I want to get sunburn when I code!

    UVOLED anyone?...please....

  • Keep waiting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nesneros ( 214571 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:03AM (#5118047) Homepage
    I remember being a freshman in college, and making a dork of myself by telling all my friends how these things would be out in a year and how massively cool they would be. Oh, and electronic paper too. And those things had prototypes and everything. And even if they didn't, in 5 years or so a plasma display would only cost as much as a CRT.

    Let's fast-forward 7 years to the present and there's an announcement that a lab has created a device, and we translate this to mean that functional products are just around the corner.

    Excuse me for being such a cynic, but until something hits store shelves at an affordable price, its pretty pointless to get excited.

    • Re:Keep waiting (Score:4, Funny)

      by alienmole ( 15522 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @10:05AM (#5118529)
      You're just young, obviously. You can look forward to a lifetime of this sort of thing.

      For example, holographic storage has been 5 years away for the last 20 years. All that data that you currently store on inconvenient and fragile spinning magnetic platters will instead be stored in some kind of tiny crystal with no moving parts except laser read/write heads.

      If you want to see some of these things in your lifetime, you're going to need some pretty advanced life extension technology. Luckily, I hear that's just around the corner -- oh wait...

      • 20 years? More like 35. I got a Word Book Science Yearbook in the late 60's with a hologram inside and an article promising that soon we could store the entire Library of Congress in a 1 inch cube.

        Sure, they built it, but they are keeping it at area 51 with the alien spaceships, and will not let us play with it.

  • Short lifespan (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BESTouff ( 531293 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:04AM (#5118049)
    However, the efficiency and lifespan of both small molecule and polymer type OLEDs, to date, has been poor for small wavelength emitting compounds

    Apparently these displays would have a short lifespan. We would then have disposable screens. That seems a perfect consumer target: cheap, glowing, quickly obsolete.

  • Does this mean that each pixel would be so quantom sized? What sort of graphics card would be needed to drive something like that for a 15" display?!
    • You were modded funny, but in case you are earnest no, each pixel will not be that size. Either one dot will emit enough light for a whole 1*10^-4 inch square a typical pixel occupies, or they'll put multiple dots together. In all likelyhood, they will use at least 3 dots (a red green and blue one) to get the color gamut, even though one dot will be sufficient for the luminosity. It doesn't take a lot of light to illuminate 1*10-4 inches.

  • mmm, high resolution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by briancnorton ( 586947 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:05AM (#5118062) Homepage
    My roommates in grad school were working on this type of thing, and they were promising resolutions over 300 DPI. That makes me salivate, but I find it funny that for once display technology will be more advanced than image generation technology. (video cards) A 300 DPI, 17" widescreen would be a resolution of something like 4500x2500, or 11 million pixels, compared to 1 or 2 million pixels in a high-res display today. AGP 32X anyone?

    • Re:mmm, high resolution (Score:2, Informative)

      by bn557 ( 183935 )
      a MUCH higher AGP bus would not be required in this sort of situation, at least for gaming. Since textures are stored on card, and the card renders polygons and does all it's magic in card, then sends it out the graphics connector(DVI or old DB15) to the monitor.

      What will be needed is graphics cards with more memory(to store more detailed textures) and probably longer load times between areas(so the textures can be transfered to the card)

      P
      • I dont REALLY know the specifics of Video IO, but 11 million pixels at 32-bit color, 60 FPS is 2.64 gbps of data. Its my understanding that the AGP has a direct connection to system RAM for large texture storage. This is supposed to give it a large frame buffer. Assuming that output resolutions jump 11-fold in a year, does it seem reasonable that memory on-card would scale equally fast? (assuming that games would utilize the new resolutions) I dont think that they could ramp up speeds that quick, but that they would need to make better use of system resources (i.e. the AGP bus) Again, I dont know specifics.
    • People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.

      People who think they know everything really piss off those of us who actually do.

    • Techtronix 4014 had a display resolution of 4096 x 3072. Was generally attached to a 16-bit minicomputer (back when 64k *was* enough).

  • OLED's (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Emperor Shaddam IV ( 199709 )
    Researchers at MIT have developed a new type of Organic Light emitting Diode (OLED) using Cadmium Selenium Quantum Dots as the electron-hole recombination layer

    Great, they contain Cadmium. Yet another device with heavy metals in it to polute our landfills and the environment. At least is doesn't have Mercury in it like Florescent light bulbs do.
  • I want glasses with a high resolution display. Perhaps even with seperate displays for each eye, for that nice 3D effect.

    This would be so much better than big screen tv's. For one we could eventually have as big a screen as the largest movie theater.

    I could also watch movies/tv in bed without keeping the missus awake with blinking lights.

    They would need to cost about $150 a piece for them to break through. But then it would be the best thing since sliced bread.
    • Ever heard of Glasstron by Sony. I guess thats what you`re looking for.

      Altough it didnt get good reviews, i know some fanatics that cant live without them.
    • In the same way I do not always want to wear headphones to listen to music, I do not want to wear glasses all the time when I need a screen.

      Interacting with a machine-- or being entertained by one-- should not exclude interacting with the world and people around you. You want to cuddle up on the couch with the missus, don your goggles, and ignore each other's presence for the duration of the movie? How about not being able to find the beer and pretzels you set down during a football game? Having to put on and take off your goggles repeatedly when you want to look up from the website you're reading?

      Thin flat displays are definitely a solution-- magic goggles seem like a niche thing with limited usefulness, to me.

    • Re:Thin flat displays are NOT the solution (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I want glasses with a high resolution display. Perhaps even with seperate displays for each eye, for that nice 3D effect.

      Apparently you need a 3D display which is viewable for one person. That sure sounds cool, but it's not what I want, nor would it be very useful to my job, or anybody I work with.

      Things I can do with a real display I can't do with your per-eye display:

      - look over somebody's shoulder to watch what how they're doing something
      - call somebody over to show them what I'm doing
      - point to somewhere on the display: "hey Bill, look at this"
      - make a presentation to a small group of people
      - slap a calibration device on it, so I know the colors are correct
      - put 2 next to each other, if I want to work with 2 computers

      The advantage of big flat-screens is that they solve some of today's problems without introducing new ones. Maybe when user interfaces have gotten far enough along that sharing displays between other computers and other people is easy, and color calibration is handled, then I'll get some super-glasses. Until then, nothing beats a real screen.

  • A step in the right direction but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Drakula ( 222725 ) <tolliver@NOSPam.ieee.org> on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:13AM (#5118082) Homepage Journal
    using quantum dots does not solve the total efficiency problem. The overall efficiency of a LED is the product of the injection efficiency, the extraction efficiency, and the internal quantum efficiency. The inorganic quantum dots will make the internal quantum efficiency large, this is how well the device converts the injected electrons into light. However, the big stumbling block is the injection effeciency, how well the injected current is converted to electron-hole pairs for generating light. When this efficiency is low, a large amount of the applied power is lost to heat. This will need to be overcome as well before OLEDs of any type make as a commercial technology.

    Also the cadmium selenide system is known to have lifetime issues. These, and related, materials were the first candidates for blue/green LEDs and lasers but suffered from horrible lifetimes.

  • Cadmium? No thank you (Score:4, Insightful)

    by freshwat ( 606702 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:15AM (#5118091)
    We're finally getting rid of extremely toxic cadmium in batteries and now this? Don't these guys learn? They have to engineer over the whole like cycle, including disposal.

    • Re:Cadmium? No thank you (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      crap, now they have to figure out something else to use all those damn recycled cadmium batteries for.
    • If you read the article, the Cadmium selenide layer is a grid of 3nm^3 crystals. Even if it were a solid 3nm layer of metallic cadmium, that could still be only a few micrograms per square meter of display. I don't think it's THAT toxic is it?

  • For those miss the point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by akincisor ( 603833 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:18AM (#5118098)
    The point of the article is that they have managed to use an inorganic layer in between just two organic layers and produce a magnitude of light equivalent to earlier efforts with 20 layers. These things have 25 times(!) the power efficiency. This might also be the first commercial application of quantum dots.

  • I'm trying to get my head around the 'self-luminous' bit. So you can't switch them off? What happens when you shut the lid of your portable and put it in its sack for the night? Does it keep the case warm? If these screens are going to be readable in the same conditions as a newspaper, they are going to need to kick out several watts.

    Also, I can think of several options for where the power comes from, and none of them fill me with confidence. It could be radioactive, it could be organic (ie your screen is going to gradually eat itself, or do you pour glucose solution into the VGA socket?)...

    Is anyone getting anywhere with passive displays, ie systems which work by reflection not emission, and therefore don't need illuminating at all?

    • They use electricity, don't worry. (Score:5, Informative)

      by akincisor ( 603833 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:34AM (#5118141)
      In normal LCD panels, the LCD itself just blocks light in strategic areas, and the image is formed by a light source that is behind the panel. This technology claims that the electricity will be passed through each pixel, which will produce the light necessary itself.

    • Re:In the dark about permanent illumination (Score:5, Informative)

      by dissy ( 172727 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @09:37AM (#5118398)
      > I'm trying to get my head around the
      > 'self-luminous' bit.

      Your current VGA monitor is self-luminous.
      You see the image because it is producing its own light.

      LCDs are not, they *block* light from going through the display, and you see the light it does not block.
      The light itself comes from a backlight, usually neon tubes that reflect off a reflective surface under the LCD panel itself.

      Some LCDs simply have a mirror behind them and NO backlight (Think classic gameboy)
      These work by having a mirror that external light goes in, bounces off, and hits your eye.. Only where the LCD isnt blocking light.

      So these self-luminous displays will be monitor crisp/bright, better resolution, and flat.

      Also, please dont confuse organic with alive.
      The gas in your car is concidered organic, yet you dont need to feed it for power.
      • The gas in my car was fed by the sun and various other plants and animals and was alive at one time. Which is why it is such a cheap power source. We're living off the work of others. We can't fathom the amount of time and energy it took to make a single tank of gas, yet we burn through it in a week without ever thinking about it. Only someone with a soul would confuse organic with alive.

  • Huh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Morgahastu ( 522162 ) <bshelNO@SPAMWEEZ ... fave bands name> on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:27AM (#5118120) Journal
    Researchers at MIT have developed a new type of Organic Light emitting Diode

    ...

    since they are inorganic

    This is like the episode of star trek where picard and some scientist debate if Data is a lifeform or not.

  • Never in Europe that's for sure. (Score:5, Informative)

    by jabuzz ( 182671 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:37AM (#5118150) Homepage
    They are using cadmium, a nasty horrid posionous heavy metal that causes polution and soon to be banned from use in the European Union. Even lead in solder is to be banned shortly. Mercury another posionous heavy metal has already been banned.

    • Re:Never in Europe that's for sure. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by farnsaw ( 252018 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @10:08AM (#5118545) Homepage
      Common Research Cycle:
      First figure out how to do it with exotic materials that exhibit the behaviour you want, once you understand how this works, find more mundane (and less toxic) materials to create the consumer product.

      Many exotic materials have special behaviours that are great for research and creating devices that work in the lab environment but they often have drawbacks, not the least of which is their toxicity. These materials are also very expensive to produce, as well as dispose of, which will result in a consumer product that is too expensive for your average consumer.

      Manufacturers and consumers now look at the entire cost of a product from the initial manufacturing cost or purchase price, right through to the cost of disposing of it. Individual consumers usually don't pay much attention to the latter since they usually have one of an item (most /.ers excepted), however, corporations that often have thousands of each computer or display pay much more attention to things like lifespan and disposal costs. If this product is to come to market as more than a niche player, it needs to have a good ROI and low TCO.

      ROI = Return on Investment
      TCO = Total Cost of Ownership

      • If they can use standard methods to lay down the cadmium (CVD or something), then the total amount of toxic material could well be microscopic.

        Gallium Arsenide semiconductors (used in diodes, microwave applications, etc.) are incredibly toxic, but you don't see huge cleanup efforts due to the material - due partly to the high price of the substrate. Once you get out of the foundry, toxicity concerns drop by orders of magnitude.

  • tell me when this is available (Score:5, Funny)

    by mrtroy ( 640746 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @09:27AM (#5118358)
    I have several ideas with what I would like to do with this technology.
    FIRST: make an invisible suit...you know the old deal with the cameras displaying the stuff on you so you look like your background or at least enough like it to blend in
    SECOND: make an invisible *james bond* car
    THIRD: make an invisible *harry potter* cloak
    FOURTH: make my ceiling display some high quality pron for those kinky nights.
    *Bows*

  • Cadmium (Score:2, Funny)

    by gr8_phk ( 621180 )
    Let's replace lead-based CRTs with Cadmium-based displays and call it "organic". So cheap they'll become disposable.

  • Mmmm.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by vjmurphy ( 190266 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @09:54AM (#5118476) Homepage
    "Mmmmm ... can't wait to buy my first roll-up display!"

    Darn it, I mistook my ultra-cool roll-up display with Mars background image for a Strawberry Fruit Roll-up! Now my stomach is trying to connect to Windows Update and I don't feel very good...

  • Backlit OLEDs? (Score:3, Funny)

    by AyeRoxor! ( 471669 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @10:08AM (#5118548) Journal
    "It is widely believed that the next generation of flexible flat panel display technologies will be self luminous (non-backlit) organic light emitting diodes."

    That's good to hear. IMHO, backlit light-emitting diodes were overkill in the lumens department.
  • i'm just waiting for them to replace LCD technology, which i've never been a fan of ... unless you've got an amazingly expensive unit, the lighting on most LCDs really sucks ... it would simply make for better image quality if each pixel could emit its own light, as with OLEDs and CRTs ...

    </rant>
  • And on a lighter note, Bill Gates hailed this breakthrough as just the thing needed for thier SPOT technology to revolutionize the use of toilet tissue in the home.

    He was quoted as saying "Imagine the potential impact of being able to stream news, sports and advertisements to this often overlooked segment of the market in real-time."

    MSFT was down 5% on the announcment.

  • Next generation?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ediron2 ( 246908 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @10:50AM (#5118697) Journal
    ... the next generation of flexible flat panel display technologies ...

    I realize I've been on a bender since New Year's Eve, but ... where was the first generation of these?

    The only flexible flat panel I've ever seen was this palmpilot my friend sat down on, 'tho I really doubt it qualified as a display technology after he crushed it.

  • Near 100% efficiency? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by atcurtis ( 191512 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:20AM (#5118896) Homepage Journal
    Maybe every electron-hole combination generates a photon of light but IIRC the direction in which the photon of light travels is random.

    That means that at least 50% of the photons are travelling the wrong direction... Perhaps the most optimistic view is that 40% are travelling forwards from the OLED screen, the remainder are absorbed back into the substrate and turned into heat.

    Maybe someone would like to correct me...

    ttfn
    • You may well be right but I'd imagine the rear of the thing would be reflective (at least for the wavelength of light it emits) and so sends most of the light forward.

      Hmmn. I'd also guess that there'd be a sort of cascade effect (you'd need more than one photon) like in a solid state laser where one photon begets another and so on. Stick a reflective surface on the back and you'd probably get almost 100% efficiency. Ignoring any transient start up effects that is.

  • Geez (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @12:01PM (#5119176) Journal
    "using Cadmium Selenium Quantum Dots as the electron-hole recombination layer"....."small molecule and polymer type OLEDs"....."Using quantum dots as the emissive layer in OLEDs potentially solves both of these problems since they are inorganic and won't degrade, and they have a theoretical maximum quantum efficiency of near 100%."

    I feel like I'm reading the transcript of a conversation between the cyborg and the Reading Rainbow guy on Star Trek.

  • One of the great laws of sciento-marketing is: "As time to release approaches infinity, theoretical efficiency approaches 100%."


    Come up with a new theory for solar cells and you can boast that it has the potential for nearly 100% efficiency, but the proof is in the pudding, and we all know how long it's taking thin flexible display pudding to set...

  • I, for one, am not so keen on 'roll up' displays. If it's anything like most laminated plastic sheets, it will develop ripples and creases with 'normal use' (a.k.a. mild abuse). For some users an uneven display would be just fine, but not for CAD, design or similar uses.

    On the other hand, wallpaper = display would be great. You could change colors and patterns when ever you want, even to 'set the mood'. I could design rooms without worrying where the TV is going, because it could be (on) any wall and at any height/size. Heck, if it's luminescent you could even light the room!

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