Is OLED Better Than LCD and Plasma Technology?

OLED technology is the newest player in the HDTV game. This technology uses a stack of organic polymers thinner than the width of a human hair. When surrounded by electrons, these polymers generate light and colour. Because these layers don’t require glass for support, the contrast is significantly better than the picture generated by the gases in plasma and the crystals in LCD technology.

The lights are brighter because none of it needs to be absorbed into the glass, and the blacks are blacker. This means an OLED Television can potentially create a picture that is more uniform than LCD and Plasma, and more energy efficient as well. The pixels respond so quickly in an OLED display that there is no wasted energy keeping pixels ready to fire.

The thinness of a typical OLED display leads to many possibilities in technology development. Handheld GPS devices, cellular phones and laptop screens can become flexible and foldable. GPS displays can become embedded directly into the glass of a windscreen.

OLED Television screens can double as mirrors or windows without becoming a thick and clunky replacement. “Smart” clothing is even a possibility, with an embedded gps chip or light-emitting visibility features. The light created by OLED pixels is similar to incandescent lighting, but uses less energy than fluorescent lights, and sheets of OLED panels may soon replace fluorescent lights in commercial businesses.

OLED manufacturing is very similar to plastics manufacture, and therefore it is very easy to layer these polymers into large, thin, flexible sheets. This makes it potentially less expensive to manufacture than large LCD or plasma displays, and creates no change in quality with size.

The possibilities of OLED technology are just beginning. The plasma and LCD wars of today will soon be eclipsed by this new technology. The crisper picture, energy efficiency, and thin and flexible mounting will make OLED the universal choice for future display technology.