QD/OLED Filler
Samsung Display’s (pvt) QD/OLED project is a game changer for SDC, who has moved away from generic LCD TV production over the last three years. The project, which has developed a process for producing a blue OLED emitting platform that gets partially converted to red and green using quantum dots, creating an RGB pixel, is a process that would require new production facilities that are specific to the technology. As this process does not require a color filter, it has the technical ability to be brighter and less expensive when compared to the WOLED process currently used by LG Display (LPL) to produce OLED TV panels. While the structure for QD/OLED is different from typical RGB OLED displays, the basic OLED stack still has the same materials that surround the emitter that help to generate light, such as HTL (Hole transport layer), ETL (Electron Transport Layer), HIL (Hole Injection Layer), and EIL (Electron Injection Layer), along with blocking layers and an anode and cathode. One new material that has been said to be included in the QD/OLED stack is called ‘filler’ and while it seems more like it might be akin to cereal by-products that have little nutritional value but add bulk, it serves a purpose that adds to the structure’s ability to produce light.
Filler and Bank Structures - Source: US 2021/0234134
Such a structure, as seen in Fig. 2, uses a high refractive material as the filler and an encapsulation material, however much of the light is reflected internally, so the OLED stacks (#42 in Fig. 2) are surrounded by a bank of material that sends the internally reflected light out of the display rather than being trapped internally. While the concept of structures that extract light from displays is certainly not new, it seems this concept is being built into SDC’s QD/OLED process directly, making the ‘filler’ part of the display structure for the first time. We believe Solus Advanced Materials (336370.KS) (formerly Doosan Solus) is the supplier of the filler material, creating a new category of materials to the QD/OLED stack, and while the use of fillers will depend on how easily the structures can be built and how effective they are in capturing light, we expect Solas to join other QD/OLED material suppliers such as SFC (JV between SDC and Hodogaya Chemical (4112.JP), Duksan Neolux (077360.KS), and Merck (MRK).
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