Meta-surface driven OLED displays with more than 10,000 pixels per inch

Meta-surface-based microdisplays

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have found wide application in high-resolution large-screen televisions and handheld displays on smartphones and tablets. When the screen is some distance from the eye, the typical number of pixels per inch is in the hundreds. For microdisplays near the eye – for example in virtual and augmented reality applications – the required pixel density is several thousand pixels per inch and cannot be achieved by current display technologies. Joo et al. developed a full-color OLED design with high brightness, which is based on a technical meta-surface as a tunable rear reflector. An ultra-high density of 10,000 pixels per inch easily meets the requirements for next-generation microdisplays that can be made on glasses or contact lenses.

science, this edition p. 459

Abstract

Optical meta-surfaces are increasingly finding their way into integrated devices, where they can improve and control the emission, modulation, dynamic shaping and detection of light waves. In this study we show that the architecture of OLED displays (Organic Light Emitting Diode) can be completely redesigned by the introduction of nanostructured meta-surface mirrors. In the resulting meta-OLED displays, various meta-surface patterns define red, green and blue pixels and ensure an optimized extraction of these colors from organic, white light emitters. This new architecture makes it easy to create devices with the ultra-high pixel densities (> 10,000 pixels per inch) required in new display applications (e.g. augmented reality) that use scalable nanoimprint lithography. The manufactured pixels also offer twice the luminescence efficiency and superior color purity compared to standard color-filtered white OLEDs.