Research team achieves breakthrough in LED screen tech

A research team said Tuesday that it has developed a technology enabling the emission of the three basic colors of light and ways to produce white, something which has proven difficult.

The new technology enables colors to be expressed directly on screen, resulting in a much stronger and clearer color.

The joint team from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology Electronics made gallium nitride materials into the shape of a hexagon pyramid with the thickness of a few micrometers, (a micrometer is one-millionth of a meter) to develop an LED chip. Allowing electricity to flow into the chip enables the generation of a spectrum of lights.

The colors of light stemming from the slope, edge and vertex are all different. In short, the team developed a source technology by which the inflow of electricity enables the emission of various colors.

The research team also created a chip less than 300 nanometers (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter) small, resulting in the same outcome. These findings were listed in the Dec. 1 issue of Advanced Materials, a preeminent academic journal.

KAIST physics professor Cho Yong-hoon, who led the team, said, “Our finding has significant meaning in science and industry in that it identified the generation of a spectrum of colors without using fluorescent materials. We can develop highly efficient products by furthering our study with companies.”

Korean scientists and engineers expect that the development of this LED chip can compete with next-generation LED technologies dominated by Japan and Germany. The two countries developed an LED technology that can create various colors without the use of fluorescent materials, but cannot increase the size of a screen to more than 3 inches. The price is also excessive. AMOLED may also be used, but is mostly used in mobile devices such as smartphones.

On these findings, Kwon Oh-kyun, director of next-generation LED research at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, said, “Patents for full-color LEDs are monopolized by a small number of companies including Japan`s Nichia and Germany`s Osram, making it difficult for Korean companies to access the market. The recently developed technology enables the creation of big screens such as those of TVs and PCs, while lowering production costs due to relatively cheap materials."

"The approach method is also different, which means the technology is free from patent matters. Further studies will enable the development of much thinner and cheaper screens."

A Samsung LED source said, “Though the latest study is in the initial stage of R&D, I am certain that commercialization can come in about five years."

enhanced@donga.com