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Luminescent concentrator design for displays with high ambient contrast and efficiency

Nature Photonics volume 17, pages 872–877 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

A key display characteristic is its efficiency (emitted light power divided by input power). Although display efficiencies are being improved through emissive (for example, quantum dot and organic light-emitting) display designs, which remove the highly inefficient colour filters found in traditional liquid crystal displays, polarization filters, which block about 50% light, remain necessary to inhibit ambient light reflection. We introduce a luminescent concentrator design to replace both colour and polarization filters. Narrow-band, large-Stokes-shift, CdSe/CdS quantum dot emitters are embedded in a luminescent concentrator pixel element with a small top aperture. The remainder of the top surface is coated black, reducing ambient light reflection. A single pixel demonstrates an extraction efficiency of 40.9% from a pixel with an aperture opening of 11.0%. A simple proof-of-concept multipixel array is demonstrated.

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Fig. 1: Pixel design and component optical properties.
Fig. 2: Pixel excitation and emission and extraction efficiency as a function of design parameters.
Fig. 3: Micropixel array design, fabrication and optical properties.
Fig. 4: Micropixel addressing.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the US Department of Energy ‘Photonics at Thermodynamic Limits’ Energy Frontier Research Center under grant DE-SC0019140.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Osman S. Cifci, Mikayla A. Yoder.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Osman S. Cifci, Mikayla A. Yoder, Lu Xu, Hao Chen, Christopher J. Beck, Junwen He, Ralph G. Nuzzo & Paul V. Braun

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Osman S. Cifci, Christopher J. Beck & Paul V. Braun

  3. Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Osman S. Cifci & Paul V. Braun

  4. Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Yozgat Bozok University, Yozgat, Turkey

    Osman S. Cifci

  5. Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Mikayla A. Yoder, Lu Xu, Junwen He, Ralph G. Nuzzo & Paul V. Braun

  6. Department of Chemistry and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Brent A. Koscher, Zachary Nett, Joseph K. Swabeck & A. Paul Alivisatos

  7. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA

    A. Paul Alivisatos

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Contributions

O.S.C. and M.A.Y., under the supervision of P.V.B. and R.G.N., respectively, designed the study. O.S.C. and M.A.Y. performed the experiments, analysed and interpreted the data and co-wrote the manuscript. B.A.K., Z.N., J.K.S. and A.P.A. provided the QDs. H.C. helped with the optical characterization setup. C.J.B. designed the circuit board for illumination. J.H. advised on the modelling as well as the experimental setup and interpretation. L.X. advised and helped develop the procedures for QD encapsulation in the polymer. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul V. Braun.

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Nature Photonics thanks Sergio Brovelli and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–5.

Supplementary Video 1

Video showing pixels being sequentially addressed.

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Cifci, O.S., Yoder, M.A., Xu, L. et al. Luminescent concentrator design for displays with high ambient contrast and efficiency. Nat. Photon. 17, 872–877 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01281-2

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