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Tuesday, 12 November 2013
Companies like LG and Samsung have been increasingly depending on the OLED display technologies for
their smartphones, digital cameras, and even televisions. The OLED screens have incredible
black levels and are super-thin, but the battery life of these screens is very poor. Additionally, the cost of this technology is also high. The researchers from the University of Bonn have developed a new technology that could make cheaper and more efficient OLED displays.
OLEDs are called so because they are made up of organic molecules and these molecules consist solely of carbon and hydrogen. In a conventional OLED display, there is a lot of energy loss as the display generates more heat instead of light. According to the University of Bonn press release, "this loss of energy occurs frequently: three quarters of all charges carry the same spin. Much like the needle of a compass, they point in the same direction but cannot touch each other, effectively lowering the yield of useful light." While noble metals can be used to quickly re-orient the magnetic particles so that they do generate light instead of heat after all, but such rare metals are obviously an expensive addition to the overall manufacturing costs.
Dr. John Lupton, Professor of Physics at the University of Regensburg, said that the new OLED display technology raises the efficiency using an entirely different mechanism. According to him, "Charges can flip the orientation of their spins spontaneously, you just have to wait for long enough for this to occur." But traditional OLED molecules give up their energy as heat quicker than the new ones which are developed at the University of Bonn. Professor Sigurd Höger of the University of Bonn said that, "“It appears that, in our OLEDs, the molecules can store electrical energy for significantly longer than is conventionally assumed, our molecules can therefore exploit the spontaneous jumps in spin orientation in order to generate light."
This technology could make a big difference to the consumers. The screen on your smartphone often costs as much as the rest of the parts combined. That is a heck lot of money for just a screen, maybe that won't be the case once this technology is implemented.
OLEDs are called so because they are made up of organic molecules and these molecules consist solely of carbon and hydrogen. In a conventional OLED display, there is a lot of energy loss as the display generates more heat instead of light. According to the University of Bonn press release, "this loss of energy occurs frequently: three quarters of all charges carry the same spin. Much like the needle of a compass, they point in the same direction but cannot touch each other, effectively lowering the yield of useful light." While noble metals can be used to quickly re-orient the magnetic particles so that they do generate light instead of heat after all, but such rare metals are obviously an expensive addition to the overall manufacturing costs.
Dr. John Lupton, Professor of Physics at the University of Regensburg, said that the new OLED display technology raises the efficiency using an entirely different mechanism. According to him, "Charges can flip the orientation of their spins spontaneously, you just have to wait for long enough for this to occur." But traditional OLED molecules give up their energy as heat quicker than the new ones which are developed at the University of Bonn. Professor Sigurd Höger of the University of Bonn said that, "“It appears that, in our OLEDs, the molecules can store electrical energy for significantly longer than is conventionally assumed, our molecules can therefore exploit the spontaneous jumps in spin orientation in order to generate light."
This technology could make a big difference to the consumers. The screen on your smartphone often costs as much as the rest of the parts combined. That is a heck lot of money for just a screen, maybe that won't be the case once this technology is implemented.