A Holistic Guide to OLED Displays

The technology behind OLEDs is advancing quickly, with some products now achieving similar efficiency, lifespan, and color quality to LEDs.

According to a report by Extrapolate, the OLED display market is projected to reach USD 85.4 billion by 2030 at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 13.6% between 2022 and 2030.

Despite this progress, OLEDs remain a few years away from becoming a common choice for general lighting, mainly due to their high production costs. In this blog, let us have a look at a holistic view of OLED displays.

What is OLED?

An OLED, or Organic Light-Emitting Diode, is a type of LED technology where light is produced by organic molecules. These organic LEDs are renowned for creating some of the world’s best display panels. OLEDs consist of thin films of organic materials, typically fabricated in an inert environment like a glove box using a spin coater, and are placed between two conductive layers. When an electrical current passes through these layers, it emits a bright light.

One of the key benefits of OLED technology is its simple design, which offers several advantages over other display technologies. OLEDs allow for emissive displays, meaning each pixel emits its own light and is individually controlled, unlike LCDs, which rely on a backlighting unit. This results in superior image quality, with bright colors, fast response times, and very high contrast ratios. OLEDs are particularly known for their ability to produce “true” blacks, which LCDs cannot achieve due to their backlighting. The straightforward design of OLEDs also makes it possible to create flexible and transparent displays.

Benefits of OLED

Flexible OLED displays have several advantages over traditional LED and LCD technologies, largely due to their unique construction. The plastic, organic layers of an OLED are significantly thinner, lighter, and more flexible than the crystalline layers found in LEDs or LCDs. This allows OLEDs to use flexible substrates, such as plastic, instead of the rigid glass substrates required by LEDs and LCDs.

They are also brighter than LEDs. The organic light-emitting layers in OLEDs are much thinner than the corresponding inorganic layers in LEDs, allowing for multi-layered conductive and emissive structures. Moreover, since LEDs and LCDs require a glass layer for support, some light is inevitably absorbed by the glass. OLEDs, on the other hand, do not require such a glass layer, enhancing their brightness.

Unlike LCDs, OLEDs do not need backlighting. LCDs display images by selectively blocking parts of the backlight, whereas OLEDs generate their own light. This characteristic means OLEDs consume much less power than LCDs, where most of the power is used for backlighting. This efficiency is particularly beneficial for battery-powered devices like smartphones.

OLEDs are also easier to manufacture and can be produced in larger sizes. Since they are made from plastic-like materials, OLEDs can be fabricated into large, thin sheets. In contrast, producing and aligning liquid crystals for LCDs is a more complex process.

Additionally, transparent OLED displays offer wide viewing angles, up to about 170 degrees. Unlike LCDs, which can have limited viewing angles due to their light-blocking mechanism, OLEDs emit light directly, providing a broader viewing range.

Disadvantages of OLEDs

While OLED technology offers many benefits, it also has some drawbacks:

1. Lifetime: The longevity of OLED displays varies by color. Although red and green OLED materials have relatively long lifespans, blue OLED materials currently have much shorter lifetimes, which can affect the overall lifespan of the display.
2. Manufacturing: The manufacturing processes for OLEDs are currently quite expensive, making them costlier to produce compared to other display technologies.
3. Water Sensitivity: OLEDs are highly sensitive to moisture, and exposure to water can easily damage them, posing a significant challenge to durability and reliability in various environments.

Uses of OLED Displays

Here are a few use cases of OLED displays:

1. Televisions and Monitors: OLED technology made its commercial debut in televisions and computer monitors in 2013 and quickly dominated the premium display market within five years. Today, OLED displays are widely available in various formats, including flat and curved panel TVs, as well as innovative designs like OLED wallpaper.
2. Smartphones and Tablets: Although touchscreen OLED displays took longer to penetrate the mobile device market, since 2016, most high-end smartphones and tablets have adopted active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLEDs). AMOLEDs incorporate an additional layer of semiconducting material behind the primary panel, enabling extremely fast activation speeds—critical for ultra-high-definition (UHD) devices with high pixel densities. While LCDs are still commonly used in smartphones and tablets, AMOLED technology is up to 1,000 times faster than comparable LCD displays.
3. Wearables: Since 2017, OLED technology has gained traction in wearable devices. Monochrome OLEDs have been integrated into fitness bands and smartwatches with small wrist-mounted displays. More recently, OLED microdisplays have been used in virtual reality (VR) headsets due to their exceptional refresh rates and lower brightness levels. OLEDs can produce up to half the nits of an LCD display while still delivering HDR content, which helps reduce eye strain.
4. Light Panels: Some of the earliest applications of OLED technology were self-emissive light panels with highly tunable spectral outputs. These have been used to create flexible and uniform light panels, however the OLED light panels market is still developing, with the limited availability of OLED light sources for commercial use.

Future of OLEDs

OLED technology for general illumination is currently at a pivotal point. OLED “panels,” the light-emitting components used in luminaires, are now available with efficacies of 85 lumens per watt (lm/W) and a color rendering index (CRI) of over 90. There are also high-brightness panels available, which enable the creation of smaller devices without sacrificing light output. Additionally, the lifespan of OLED panels is improving, with many products now offering a service life of 30,000 to 50,000 hours before their light output diminishes to 70% of the original level. However, despite these technological advances, the high cost remains a significant obstacle to wider OLED market adoption.

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