Showing posts with label OLED. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OLED. Show all posts

Tuesday 5 May 2020

OLED Technology: Introduction and Basics

OLED Technology
We’ve heard a lot of OLED displays this and that. OLED display phones and OLED display gadgets, but what is OLED actually. OLED actually stands for organic light emitting diode. OLED as it is commonly called is present in many monitors, lighting and much more. OLED in other terms is the next level when it comes to LEDs and LCDs. In this post we’ll be seeing what OLED technology is all about and how it is different to the previous LEDs and LCDs.

First of all what are LED displays? 


Ok this is an easy one you might say light emitting diode and you wouldn’t be wrong either. LED was first introduced to the world back in 2009. LED displays marked the shift away from their predecessors, or as we commonly know them as those big TVs. Yes remember those days when the TV was a humongous box!

Those big TVs had cathode ray tubes by the way. With OLED coming a year after LED displays, you got even thinner and crisper images. Not only thinner TVs but people even came up with flexible screens. Screens that either could be rolled up or that could be folded.

OLED Technology and lighting: 


OLED displays are mainly large panels of light. These large areas diffuse light in different colors, giving us our vibrant images as we know them today. Not only that this technology also could change shape, transparency and colors giving us that never – before – seen –images. More than this OLED technology is known for its absence of poisonous mercury and energy efficiency.

The First OLED technology Product: 


Back in 2009 Philips developed the first OLED technology product- The Lumiblade. This thin and flat device gave off little heat and could be embedded into most materials with little or no trouble. This flat and thin device, therefore gave product developers a field day. It could be embedded into clothes, table tops, walls and what have you. The possibilities were endless.

Come a few years forward to 2013 and Philips and BASF came up with a lighted transparent car roof. This roof will apparently be solar powered. The whole transparent business means that it would turn transparent when switched off. This is just one of the examples of OLED technology.

OLED Technology and its functioning: 


OLED technology in the most basic of terms are organic semi- conductor materials that emit light when an electric current is passed through it. OLED displays work by passing current through thin layers of organic semiconductors. These semi-conductors are sandwiched between two charged electrodes which are positive and negative charged respectively. This sandwich is then placed on a transparent surface such as glass. The transparent surface is called a substrate. When current is passed through the sandwich it causes a high energy state called excitation. As this excitation layer subsides into normalcy it causes energy to flow evenly and thus emit light.

History of OLED technology: 


OLED technology was first invented by researchers at Eastman Kodak company back in 1987. Yes we are talking of that Kodak company here.