FEATURE ENTERTAINMENT
A new era of colour
Televisions are receiving a major overhaul, Matthew Dale finds, with quantum dot and OLED technologies competing to give displays a wider gamut of colours
W
hile resolution remains a big selling point for television makers, with ultra HD and 4K displays now widely
available, display resolution is reaching a point of diminishing return, as additional enhancements will be indiscernible to the human eye. Entertainment giants such as Samsung and LG are therefore turning to improving the quality of individual pixels using wide colour gamut (WCG) technologies, specifically quantum dots and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Each technology presents its own advantages and drawbacks that will see them capture different portions of the television market in the coming years. There is talk of increasing TV display
resolution from 4K to 8K, according to Dr Eric Virey, senior market and technology
analyst for solid-state lighting and displays at market research firm Yole Développement, but from a scientific point of view the benefits of doing this are extremely limited. The human eye can distinguish resolution of typically 60 pixels per degree. ‘For the consumer there are very few use cases where 8K would be significantly beneficial,’ Virey stated. The television industry has consequently switched its focus from adding even more pixels, to improving pixel quality and giving a broader range of colours. Yole estimates that seven per cent of televisions sold in 2017 will offer WCG features, but this will increase to around 50 per cent by 2022. Television screens have been limited to
showing only about a third of the colours perceivable by human eye, according to Jeff Yurek, director of marketing and investor
relations at quantum dot manufacturer Nanosys. ‘Although the benefits of higher resolution screens are now diminishing, we are still very far from seeing the same thing occur with colour and pixel quality,’ he said. At the forefront of this new technological
roadmap are OLEDs and quantum dots, differing illumination formats that are both set to provide televisions with exceptional picture quality.
Perfect dark
A Nanosys demo of blue cadmium-free electro-emissive quantum dots next to vials of red and green cadmium-free photo-emissive materials
14 Electro Optics November 2017
OLEDs comprise a multi-layer structure, one of which is a film of organic (carbon- based) electroluminescent material. When implemented in televisions, OLEDs remove the need for a backlight and in some cases colour filters as well – both essential components in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) – making them more efficient and producible in thinner dimensions. This has enabled the fabrication of flexible, rollable and even stretchable displays, while also offering excellent picture quality, an extensive range of colours and wide viewing angles. Exceptional contrast is also enabled by the ability of OLEDs to produce
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