In 2017, MIT researchers developed light-emitting plants by infusing nanoparticles into plants. With the technology, scientists hope to create a greener solution for lighting which electricity will no longer be necessary. The idea then led to an interdisciplinary collaboration between an MIT architecture professor and a professor of chemical engineering. Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, and his team implanted an enzyme that turns the plants’ stored energy into light, making plants glow like how fireflies do. Based on ...

Starting today on May 21, LIGHTFAIR International (LFI) 2019 is taking place in Philadelphia this year. Leading LED and lighting companies across the world including Cree Lighting, Current by GE, Osram and more are presenting their latest lighting technology and innovative products at the event. Connected lighting, human centric lighting and architecture lighting are focuses of the international firms. Cree Lighting, now fully owned by Ideal Industries, will showcase its new product portfolio for indoor, outdoor and intelligent lighting at LFI 2019. Fo...

French research institute, Leti of CEA Tech, announced a new technology development based on CMOS for GaN Micro LED displays manufacture. Researchers said the new process is capable of producing high performance Micro LED displays for a wide range of applications from smart watches to TVs. The approach fabricates elementary units of all-in-one red, green, blue (RGB) Micro LEDs on a CMOS driving circuit, and transfers the devices to a simple receiving substrate. The units are fabricated with a full semiconductor, wafer-scale approach. (Image: CEA...

Plessey announced that it has achieved a significant milestone in the development of its monolithic Micro LED displays with its backplane partner, Jasper Display Corp (JDC). The two companies announced their strategic partnership in September 2018. Though intensive collaboration, Plessey has succeeded in wafer level bonding of its GaN-on-Silicon monolithic Micro LED wafers with JDC’s eSP70 silicon patented backplane technology, resulting in Micro LED displays that contain addressable LEDs. Wafer level bonding poses significant technical challenges ...

Rumors about when Apple will start adopting Micro LED in its products have been going on since it acquired Micro LED startup LuxVue in 2014. Many believed that Apple Watch would be the first Apple product using Micro LED display featuring its high brightness and low power consumption. However, it is also likely that the technology will be seen in augmented reality (AR) devices based on Apple’s recent plans. Reuters reported that Apple has teamed up with German software developer SAP to help business develop applications based on Apple’s machine-l...

Micro LED technology startup VueReal reported that it has developed a solution to offer required yield for high-volume production of Micro LED displays. Right after unveiling its ability to produce Micro LED display with 30,000 ppi with product sample available for order, VueReal announced its development of a Micro LED display mass production solution. Low transfer yield and the need for expensive redundancy or repair solutions have been major limiting factors preventing Micro LED displays from being used in mainstream applications. In order to tackle the issue...

MIT researchers have unveiled a study in 2016 that exposure to LED flickering light with a specific frequency could reduce the amyloid plaques seen in mice with Alzheimer’s disease. The team recently published a new study which explains the effect of the light therapy at cell level. The new study, published in Neuron on May 7, found that this light treatment has widespread effects at the cellular level, helping not just neurons but also immune cells called microglia. Overall, these effects reduce inflammation, enhance synaptic function, and protect against cell death, in ...

VueReal, the Canada-based Micro LED developer, announced its achievement in Micro LED display production. With its self-aligned technology, VueReal has reached a high yield in Micro LED display production. VueReal will start accepting orders for Micro LED display samples by June 2019. According to VueReal, its self-aligned integration process is able to meet the alignment accuracy requirement without compromising Micro LED performance. Based on the technique and adaptive patterning technologies from VueReal, Reza Chaji, CEO of VueReal, noted that ...

The Tianma Group from China announced that it will exhibit a 7.56-inch Micro LED display, a Mini LED backlit HDR LCD, and a Flexible AMOLED display at Display Week 2019. Tianma will showcase a Micro LED display with over 60 percent transparency and a resolution of 720*480 (114ppi), along with a thin border of less than 0.8mm. With the transparent Micro LED display, Tianma targets automotive applications such as HUD or car window display. (Image: Tianma) The company is also presenting a LTPS Mini LED backlight-based HDR display f...

The Society of Information Display (SID) announced the winners of its Display Industry Awards. Winners of Display of the year include Samsung’s “The Wall,” Sony’s Crystal LED Display and Apple’s OLED display for Apple Watch Series 4. Two out of the three winners went to Micro LED displays. Samsung revealed “The Wall,” a 146-inch display at CES 2018 for the first time. In 2019, the Korean company released a 75-inch Micro LED display with the “real” Micro LED chips which is only 1/15 of t...

Australian semiconductor technology developer, BluGlass, announced that its Remote Plasma Chemical Vapour Deposition (RPCVD) p-GaN technology has been adopted by X-Celeprint, a micro-transfer printing company, to develop Micro LED display prototypes. By implementing BluGlass’s RPCVD p-GaN technology, X-Celeprint’s active matrix Micro LED displays demonstrated good luminance with color uniformity, quantum efficiency and forward voltage that equal current high-performance commercial applications of 2000 nits. (Image: X-Celeprint/BluG...

As more Asian players demonstrate their progress in Micro LED, LED technology providers and researchers from Europe and North America also synchronize their advances through deepening collaboration with various solution providers. Europe: Plessey presents Micro LED AR/VR glasses; Osram joins in on Micro LED automotive display research After Plessey unveiled its GaN-on-Si monolithic Micro LED in 2018, the UK-based company has cooperated with several partners including Vuzix, JDC, Nanoco Technologies, Aixtron, Mojo Vision and others. In col...

The development of Micro LED display technology has further materialized in 2019 in the form of more solid applications presented in big trade shows. Micro LED products demonstrations marked the intensified collaboration between industry players in the supply chain across the world. Researchers, chip makers, panel producers, equipment providers and application device developers have intensified their cooperation to accelerate Micro LED technology progress. Since the beginning of 2019, many companies have announced their Micro LED progresses and plans. Follow the update...

Advanced LED technologies are bringing increasing smart applications for automobile makers, especially for the rising market of new energy car. Tesla has recently applied a patent for its newly designed sunroof which integrated LED lighting and electrical tinting. The patent, titled “Advanced Sunroof Lighting System,” describes a sunroof consisting of multiple transparent layers including an electronic tint layer and a transparent lighting layer. By controlling the tint layer and lighting layer electronically, Tesla aims to monitor the light source inside the ca...

Superinjection is a physical effect that underlies modern LEDs and lasers and was believed to occur only in semiconductor heterostructures in the past. Recently, researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) have found that the effect can also occur in homostructures, which opens up new prospects for the development of light sources. In the 1960’s, Zhores Alferov and Herbert Kroemer proposed to use heterostructures, which consist of two or more complementary semiconductors to generate wider bandgaps, enabling the concentration of electrons ...

An international research team demonstrated the possibility of tuning the color of a GaN LED by changing the time sequence at which the operation current is provided to the device. Scientists from Lehigh University, West Chester University, Osaka University and the University of Amsterdam have collaborated to develop a new technique of color tuning for GaN LED by controlling current injection to monitor the intensity ratios of emission atomic. The research, titled “Color-Tunablility in GaN LEDs Based on Atomic Emission Manipulation under Current In...

Signify, as a global leading lighting company, continues its development in innovative lighting technologies and sees light as a smart language to convey information. LiFi system which uses visible light to transmit data in over the air is a major focus of Signify to make light a new communication tool. Heading to the era of IoT, the number of internet connected devices increases drastically. Ed Huibers, general manager of Signify‘s visible light wireless communication system business unit, pointed out that there would be more than 50 billion devices relying on wireless in...

A research team at the University of Innsbruck, Austria cooperated with Osram Opto Semiconductors to develop a new red phosphor with excellent luminescence properties which can make LED lighting more energy-efficient. The research article, titled “Sr[Li2Al2O2N2]:Eu2+—A high performance red phosphor to brighten the future” was published in Nature Communications on April 23, 2019. The scientists created the new red phosphor whose light is well perceived by the eye as the human eye is more sensitive to green and less sensitive to blue and red. With th...

Researchers at The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have designed an ultrathin display that can project dynamic, multi-colored, 3D holographic images. The result of the study was published in Nature Communications. The system's critical component is a thin film of titanium filled with tiny holes that precisely correspond with each pixel in a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel. This film acts as a 'photon sieve' - each pinhole diffracts light emerging from them widely, resulting in a high-definition 3D image observable from a wide...

Micro LED start up VerLASE announce that it is developing unique technologies for massively parallel assembly of Micro LED dies or films to address the major challenge of Micro LED display mass production. VerLASE, a spin-off of Versatilis, aims to develop novel technology of color conversion layers for Micro LED display. The company focused on practical methods with semiconductor and MEMs industry methods and existing tools in novel ways to enable deterministic, massively parallel transfers of Micro die, yet with provisions that allow selective repair. A...

Apple has held talks with LiDAR suppliers seeking for advanced LiDAR sensors for its self-driving cars, suggesting that Apple is still working on its automotive vehicle project, known as “Project Titan,” reported Reuters. According to Reuters, Apple has talked to at least four LiDAR suppliers, aiming to find LiDAR sensors with a “revolutionary design” that are “smaller, cheaper and easily mass produced” in comparison to the current technology. However, the reports said Apple has not yet found one that meets its demands. (I...

A research team at Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) developed a new kind of LED which generates light from the radiative decay of exciton complexes in extremely thin layers. Researchers produced what they called as “multi-particle exciton complexes” by applying electrical pulses to extremely thin layers of material made from tungsten and selenium or sulphur. These exciton clusters are bonding states made up of electrons and “holes” in the material and can be converted into light. The result is an innovative form of light-emitting diode in whic...

An international research team has developed near-infrared (NIR) LED based on perovskite in a laboratory at Linköping University in Sweden which achieve a record external quantum efficiency of 21.6 percent Perovskites have good light-emitting properties and are easy to manufacture. However, the external quantum efficiency of perovskite-based LED has until now been limited due to defects that arise in the material during manufacture. The defects act as traps for the charge carriers and thus cause energy losses. (Image: Linköping University) To solve the ...

The next generation display technology Micro LED is on its way to commercialization after years of development. The industry has been working on technology breakthroughs and improvements to speed up the progress of Micro LED. LEDinside has partnered with the Consortium of Intelligence Micro-Assembly System (CIMS), an organization established by Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to push the development of Micro LED technologies and provide the latest trends and updates of the industry. CIMS connects the supply...

Osram Opto Semiconductors announced that it joined a project, SmartVIZ, which aims to explore the principles of high-resolution visualization solutions using Micro LEDs. Focusing on automotive interior applications, the Micro LED project expects to present initial demonstration by October 2021. The purpose of the SmartVIZ project is to provide research basis for future transparent, high-resolution, direct-emitting visualization solutions with Micro LED technologies. Osram will partner with ASM AMICRA and Fraunhofer IISB to carry out researches focu...

Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany have developed a novel, even more economical LED street light by replacing conventional high-performance LED with a special array of weaker LEDs. The new approach succeeded in reducing power consumption by 20 percent. Michael Heidinger at KIT's Light Technology Institute (LTI) designed a smart circuit that compensates aging and failure of individual LEDs. With the new approach, it is possible to install a large number of LEDs on a single board at low cost. Moreover, the LEDs incre...

To detect cancer at early stage is critical for treatment. In order to spot tumors before they become too big to cure, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed an optical imaging system using near-infrared light to spot tiny tumors. The MIT research team noted that near-infrared light with wavelengths from 900 to 1700 nanometers, is suitable to tissue imaging because light with longer wavelengths does not scatter as much as when it strikes objects, allowing the light to penetrate deeper into the tissue. Using the advantage of near-infrared light, r...

The love-hate relationship between human and blue light becomes more complicated with a new research published by researchers at Purdue University and Boston University. They discovered that blue light exposure can kill Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterium that causes infection in various parts of the body and is called “superbug.” (image: Pixabay) According to the new research, published on March 30, 2019 on Advanced Science, researchers found that exposing MRSA to blue light can render it defenseless against antiseptics as m...

Visible light communication, also known as Light Fidelity (LiFi), which transmits data through LED light, has attracted attention in the industry. European lighting companies and telecom operators including Signify, Zumtobel and O2 have trailed the technology for various applications. As LED technology advances, the adjustable wavelength makes it possible to transferring data wirelessly via visible light like how WiFi works with radio waves. In comparison with WiFi, LiFi has two strong advantages: high speed and safety. LiFi can offer high speed data transmission ...

The developments and progresses of Micro LED have been under spotlight for years with researchers in the industry and the academic field working in related technologies. Worldwide researchers have also applied patents for their technology achievements and breakthroughs to protect their intellectual properties as well as to secure leading positions in the field. (Image: Samsung) The Korean Intellectual Property Office analyzed the patent applications related to Micro LED technology filed from 2000 to April 2018 across the world and revealed that more than 60 percent of...