(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- A new study led by MIT researchers could drive the development of more energy-efficient digital displays—such as flat-screen TVs, augmented and virtual reality headsets, smartphone screens, medical imaging devices, and even large-area ambient lighting surfaces—that also generate richer, brighter colors.

The MIT scientists, in collaboration with researchers at Samsung, studied microscopic changes that occur inside LEDs that utilize electrically excited quantum dots, which are precisely shaped nanoscale semiconductor particles that emit extremely pure colored light.

Quantum dots are used in some of the computer and television displays with the best picture quality available. The efficiency of these displays could be further improved, and their manufacturing process further simplified, if the quantum dots could be electrically excited, as was first demonstrated in quantum dot LED (QD-LED) structures over 20 years ago.

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