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upstart [soylentnews.org] writes:

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upstart [soylentnews.org] writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Samsung’s next-gen OLED panels could upgrade to five-figure pixel densities [notebookcheck.net]:

A new paper [sciencemag.org] in the journal Science describes a new and revolutionary type of OLED [soylentnews.org] panel. It may boost the material's pixel counts, brightness and general quality by a significant margin, thanks to a Samsung [soylentnews.org] Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) scientist's idea to apply the latest in photonics for solar panels

This research has resulted in the development of a new kind of reflective bottom layer for these devices. They are made of metal processed to exhibit a specific texture at the nanoscopic level. These “corrugations” [stanford.edu] harness recent breakthroughs in the understanding of how light behaves at the same scale

This, according to Stanford physics researcher Mark Brongersma, includes [stanford.edu] an ability “to flow around objects such as water”. In other words, the new metal “backplate” (or “optical metasurface”, as it is technically known) should deliver light to the rest of a given solar panel [soylentnews.org] with as much efficiency as possible.

When Won-jae Joo from SAIT attended a presentation on this concept at the same university, he saw that it might have potential for OLED [soylentnews.org] technology as well. Accordingly, Brongersma, Joo and several other SAIT, Stanford and Hanyang University (in Seoul, South Korea) scientists collaborated on a project [sciencemag.org] to develop a new form of the panel type that integrated the same metasurface.

The group reported that the resulting panel had advantages [stanford.edu] over conventional displays such as those found in the high-end phones [soylentnews.org] or TVs [soylentnews.org] of today. For example, this material may require pixels placed at different “heights” within a panel as it is fabricated, according to the different wavelengths of light they emit to produce their colors.

The new “meta-OLED” removes the need for this, however, thus giving it an edge in terms of the ease and economy of producing it. However, and probably more importantly, the experimental panel's pixels [sciencemag.org] had a “higher color purity and a twofold increase in luminescence efficiency” compared to regular OLED. These results also translated to a density of about 10,000 [stanford.edu] pixels per inch (ppi). For context, even the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra [soylentnews.org] has one of just under 500 ppi.

On the other hand, the Science paper's authors base these findings [sciencemag.org] on a relatively small prototype panel. However, SAIT appears confident that it can be scaled up quickly and easily. Therefore, we might see this ultra-dense, color-rich and bright new form of OLED [soylentnews.org] in real-world devices fairly soon.

Original Submission