In the world of OLED panels, there are two main types of OLED material: fluorescent and phosphorescent. Historically, fluorescent OLED has been the easiest to work with, but it’s far less efficient than phosphorescent OLED, which is why, for years, the display industry has been trying to develop the technology needed to create a 100% phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED) panel. And while we’re still not quite there, LG Display says it has crossed a major milestone in that journey, by verifying the commercialization of panels that use blue phosphorescent PHOLED material — the first time all three primary OLED colors (red, green, and blue) have been produced from PHOLED material in a format that is viable for mass production.
In theory, a 100% PHOLED panel would exhibit 99% efficiency, with almost all of the energy consumed being converted into light, with hardly any heat. LG Display’s PHOLED technology, which is based on a hybrid two-stack Tandem OLED structure, doesn’t quite reach this peak of performance. The company uses fluorescent blue OLED in the lower stack, with blue PHOLED added to the top stack.
The company is only claiming a 15% energy savings over panels that use fluorescent blue OLED, but it’s still tangible proof that PHOLED may one day meet its loft expectations.
LG Display is set to demonstrate its new blue PHOLED panels at SID Display Week 2025 in San Jose, California on May 11. For now, the new panels are intended for small and medium-sized applications like smartphones and tablets. For portable, battery-driven devices, any energy savings — especially in the display, which tends to consume most of the power — is a welcome change.
The race to commercialize blue PHOLED began in 2023, when Universal Display Corporation (UDC) announced it had successfully created a blue phosphorescent OLED material that could meet the demands of commercial mass production. At the time, no company had officially signed on to work with UDC on the process, but it was widely believed that both Samsung Display and LG Display were considering it.
In 2024, LG Display announced that it would begin working with UDC on the project — that was eight months ago. In the short term, the goal will be to proved these new panels deliver the promised benefits. Longer-term, it will be interesting to see if LG Display can develop a tandem panel that uses 100% PHOLED material, and if it can scale the technology up to the size of today’s OLED TVs.
At the size of a TV, energy efficiency is less important that heat reduction. An OLED panel that runs cooler can run brighter, and can theoretically maintain that brightness for longer, without aging the OLED material. 100% PHOLED displays could prove just as capable in brightly lit rooms as their QLED counterparts, one of the few areas where QLED technology continues to enjoy an advantage over OLED.
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