High-efficiency quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs)

Peter Kazlas, Director Advanced Product Development

Printed Electronics Europe
April 27, 2016
About QD Vision

Founded in May 2005 - MIT roots

First QD Products to market in Display and
LED Lighting
Color IQ™ optics shipping in high volume
starting Q1-2013
Multiple MP lines qualified
High yield production processes for both QDs
and final optic assembly
ISO9000/14001, Green Partner status,
President’s Green Chemistry Award
5-10 brands in the market currently
QD Vision – the Leader in Quantum Dot Technology

At QD Vision, our purpose is to enable …

… the most colors

across
… the most applications and devices
affordable to
… the most people.
Delivering the World’s Best Color

The display industry has invested billions

into image quality with great progress on …

… display size

… resolution

… contrast

… and brightness.

But when consumers, advertisers, doctors,

and designers describe image quality…

… they talk about color.

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Why Color Matters

Better color is becoming more important

than higher resolution.
Desaturated Saturated

300 Nits
Better color equates to higher perceived brightness.

5
Quantum Dot Structure
Principle of Quantum Confinement

Size of QD provides lever for fine tuning color of emission

Bulk Semiconductor Nanocrystallite

h+
e-
h+ e-
insulator

decreasing size
conduction band

Particle in a Box
Description of
Electronic States
valence
band

Bulk Band Structure Quantized “Atomic” Energy Structure

Color IQTM Optics - Optimal for LCD Systems

Precise tunable spectrums

Color IQTM optics provide

narrow band QD light Typical white
emission optimized for 30-35nm FWHM typical LED spectrum
LCD after CFA

 Narrow band blue, green and red delivers highly saturated colors
 Saturated colors significantly expand color gamut

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QD Color Control in High-volume Manufacturing

± 1nm of center wavelength

All particles within a batch are

within < 1 atomic length of each
other (± 1nm of FWHM
variation)

100% of red QD batches and

94% of green QD batches are
within ± 1 JNCD (Just
Noticeable Color Difference)
equivalent to ∆u’v’ of 0.0040

1976 CIE Uniform

Chromaticity Diagram
(u’, v’ color space)

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Modeling the Visible Color Spectrum: Color Gamuts

Today’s color gamut standards:

 Television: NTSC
 Digital Cinema: DCI-P3
 Computers: Adobe RGB

Tomorrow: Rec. 2020

 Published in 2012 by ITU

 Sets UHD broadcast standards
 Includes 75.8% of all viewable colors
 Represents future standard for all displays
Gamut Standard % of CIE 1931
Rec. 2020 75.8%
Adobe RGB 52.1%
DCI-P3 53.6%
Rec. 709/sRGB 35.9%
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Quantum Dots Are the Only Practical Path to Rec. 2020

Theoretical Maximum
• Full gamut can only
be achieved in theory

• Large FWHM of
green primary limits
RGB LED < 90%

• Spectrally broad
WOLED BLU and
leaky color filters
limits gamut to 66%

• QDs offer the best 100%

mix of color and
efficiency for BT. 2020

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Quantum Dots Are the Only Practical Path to Rec. 2020

Lasers provide best performance, but are not practical

• Full gamut can only
be achieved in theory

• Large FWHM of
green primary limits
RGB LED < 90%

• Spectrally broad
WOLED BLU and
leaky color filters
limits gamut to 66%

• QDs offer the best 99%

mix of color and
efficiency for BT. 2020

12
Quantum Dots Are the Only Practical Path to Rec. 2020

RGB LED green primary too wide

• Full gamut can only
be achieved in theory

• Large FWHM of
green primary limits
RGB LED < 90%

• Spectrally broad
WOLED BLU and
leaky color filters
limits gamut to 66%

• QDs offer the best

mix of color and
efficiency for BT. 2020

13
Quantum Dots Are the Only Practical Path to Rec. 2020

WOLED spectrally broad light source and leaky filters limit gamut
• Full gamut can only
be achieved in theory

• Large FWHM of
green primary limits 400 450 500 550 600 650 700
RGB LED < 90%

• Spectrally broad
WOLED BLU and
leaky color filters
limits gamut to 66%

• QDs offer the best

mix of color and
efficiency for BT. 2020

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Quantum Dots Are the Only Practical Path to Rec. 2020

QD primaries yield best path to Rec. 2020 overlap

• Full gamut can only
be achieved in theory

• Large FWHM of
green primary limits
RGB LED < 90%

• Spectrally broad
WOLED BLU and
leaky color filters
limits gamut to 66%

• QDs offer the best

mix of color and
efficiency for BT. 2020

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QDs operate in two modes

Photoluminesence (PL mode)

• Activated by light energy

• Conversion of color from other light
sources
• Any light with shorter wavelength
(higher energy)

Electroluminescence (EL mode)

 Activated by electronic energy

 Direct emission of colored light
 Requires charge transfer films
 “QLEDs”

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Today’s Quantum Dot Photoluminescent Form Factors

Edge Optic Film On-Chip

QD Optic
LGP QD Film LGP

LED LED QD LED

LGP

QD Film
LGP Panel
LGP

QD Optic
LGP

LED LED
LED

Source: Nanosys Online Media Kit Source: LumenMax Optoelectronics

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Color IQTM Edge-optic Solution

Color IQ™ edge-optics deliver OLED color at LCD cost

 Color IQ optical components containing light-emitting semiconductor
nanocrystal Quantum Dots (QDs).
 Improves typical LCD TV Color performance by 50%
 Best available Color-Efficiency combination
 QDs are tuned for optimized spectra, narrowband light emission
 Highly efficient, scalable manufacturing process

Current White LED Solution Solution

LGP LGP

White LEDs Blue LEDs

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 Quantum Dot TV Products by Retail ASP – Sept. 2015

$6,000

$5,000

Estimated
2015 Unit
$4,000 Volume
List Price [$]

< 1.0 M
$3,000

2.5 M
$2,000

11.1 M
$1,000

+ 217 M
$0
< 45 50 55 60 65 70

Display Diagonal [in.]

Sources: HIS/Displaysearch, JD.com, Gome.com.cn, Samsung.com, Amazon.com, Retail Stores

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Quantum dot display market forecast

Touch Display Research forecast quantum dot component for display and
lighting market will reach $10.6 billion by 2025, from $75 million in 2013.

Source: Touch Display Research, Quantum dot display and lighting technologies and
market forecast 2015 report
QDs operate in two modes

Photoluminesence (PL mode)

• Activated by light energy

• Conversion of color from other light
sources
• Any light with shorter wavelength
(higher energy)

Electroluminescence (EL mode)

 Activated by electronic energy

 Direct emission of colored light
 Requires charge transfer films
 “QLEDs”

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Why use quantum dots for printed electronics?

• Tunable, Narrowband Emission

– Tunable emission from visible-infrared

• Low Cost Processing

– QDs can be deposited by a wide range of scalable, low cost coating and printing
processes enabling numerous form factors
– Same, simple device stack for all colors
– Longer-term potential for all-inorganic device structure, eliminating costly and
sensitive organic transport materials

• Energy Efficiency
– Narrow color emission & low voltage operation offers ~2x improvement in
efficiency
– Potential to reach 90%+ IQE (same as PhOLED)

• Low Operating Voltage

– Beneficial for electronics (backplane, drivers, battery) costs & reliability

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Tunable, narrowband color

1.0
Normalized Intensity (a.u.)

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
400 500 600 700
Wavelength (nm)

xRed yRed xGreen yGreen xBlue yBlue

NTSC 0.63 0.34 0.31 0.60 0.16 0.07
QLED 0.68 0.31 0.26 0.70 0.14 0.06

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Tunable, narrowband infrared emission

0.9
1000 nm
0.8 1100 nm
0.7 1350 nm
Normalized Emission

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700

Wavelength (nm)

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Printable QLED Device Structure

Al
cathode
Anode
Organic
EIL HIL

Organic
ETL HTL

QDL
QDL

Metal Oxide
HTL ETL/EIL

ITOanode
Cathode
Substrate

Hybrid device yields best overall performance QLEDs

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Scalable Manufacturing Process

QD Printing and solution

processing offer important
benefits compared to the
shadow mask evaporation
processes typically employed
for small molecule OLEDs:

o High Material Utilization

o Fine Feature Resolution
o Scalability
o High Uniformity

QD printing methods include

spin casting, contact printing
and ink-jetting

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 Ligands and Surface Morphology Effects

15 nm of organic material
(CBP) on QDs with
aliphatic ligands

15 nm of organic material
(CBP) on QDs with
alternative ligands

27
High-Resolution Printing of QDs

28
Ink-jet printing QDs

29
Printed QDs for Full-color AMQLED Display Development

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Performance Potential of QLEDs

EQE =   PL  r  e
20-25%*
100%
100%
100%
= >20%, similar to PhOLEDs
* Without outcoupling improvements
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 High Efficiency Deep Red QLED Performance

Peak Efficiency 18.3 cd/A

Peak Efficacy 22 lm/W

Peak EQE 18.8%

Peak IQE 83.6%

(22.5% outcoupling)
Efficiency and Voltage 16.2 cd/A, 4V
for 1000 nits
CIE x,y 0.683, 0.317

Mashford et al., Nature Photonics 7, 407–412 (2013)

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 Low Voltage, High Brightness Devices

100000

10000
Luminance (cd/m)
2

1000

100

10

1
0 2 4 6 8 10
Bias (V)

Very low operating voltages: turn-on near the band gap

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Full-Color AM-QLED

Why QLED?
Best-in-class color
Best-in-class power
All the benefits of
printable displays
All the benefits of
emissive displays

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 Wearable Microdisplay Demonstration

Why QLED?

Power efficiency directly

translates to SWaP reduction.

Color purity and tunability

allows for better selection for
nighttime use, scotopic
response.

(SVGA, 15 mm diagonal)
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Transparent QLEDs

Why QLED?

Transparent device implies

importance of optical stack,
secondary optics.

Monochrome QLED spectrum

results in less chromatic
aberration through secondary
optics, simpler refraction.

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Printable Infrared QLEDs

NIR QLED Array SWIR QLED Illuminator

• No wasted photons as all generated light is in infrared (without filters).

• Currently tunable through NIR and SWIR.
• Fast modulation rates for line-of-sight communication and sensing
• QD materials in a similar structure can be used to detect light

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 Conclusions

Quantum Dots are bringing lifelike color to LCDs, will do the same to emissive
displays in the future, and are a major trend in the display industry today.

 QD TVs are emerging as the

new standard for best-in-class
display performance:
 Best color gamut
 Best efficiency
 Lowest cost

 Many products have come to

the market in 2015-2016
utilizing this technology

 Emissive display technology

will adopt QDs next, to stay on
this improvement curve

QD VISION, COLOR IQ, the COLOR IQ logo and BELIEVE YOUR EYES are trademarks of QD Vision, Inc.
Thank you!

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