LG Develops PHOLED Panel To Give Next-Gen Displays A Big Brightness Boost
To put it simply, typical OLEDs use phosphorescent green and red subpixels, but blue subpixels are still fluorescent, and the reason is because we simply hadn't figured out how to make phosphorescent blue pixels in a durable, affordable, and overall practical manner. Fluorescent display elements (that is, subpixels) use nearly four times as much energy as phosphorescent elements, which means they create a lot more heat, and heat kills OLEDs, limiting how bright the overall panel can actually be.
The idea of a fully phosphorescent OLED, or PHOLED, isn't a new concept, but it has been a 'holy grail' of display technology for a long time, and according to Korean tech site ETNews, LG Display has indeed "succeeded in developing an OLED panel based on blue phosphorescence." This is exactly as exciting as it sounds in terms of R&D, but in terms of "going out and buying a new display," don't get too excited just yet.
That's because the way LG managed this breakthrough was through the application of tandem OLED technology. The company essentially combined the longevity of fluorescent materials with the high efficiency of phosphorescent materials in a "hybrid" way, according to ETNews. This apparently achieves good efficiency with long life, but the downside is that tandem OLEDs are both very expensive and very hard to manufacture.
As a result, LG itself says it is not looking at bringing this technology to market quite yet, and the reason is simply because LG isn't sure it can make tandem PHOLEDs in a profitable fashion. If they do come to market, they'll probably show up in smaller displays at first, like phones, tablets, and car displays. After all, Apple's already using a tandem OLED (but not PHOLED) in its new iPad Pro.
LG is using a material developed by a US-based firm called Universal Display. For its part, Universal Display's stated goal is actually to have PHOLEDs that don't rely on tandem panels. If that's possible, we could truly be looking at the next major evolution in OLEDs for monitors and TVs. For now, we'll just have to content ourselves with super-bright displays on laptops and tablets.
