This Next-Gen MicroLED Prototype Is So Cool It’s Ultraviolet (Literally)

In a dark corner of Dwarfsthe suite from here to CES 2025 in Las Vegas was a tiny watch-sized prototype exhibit. At first glance, it didn’t seem particularly special. It was bright, safe, and definitely colorful. The watch strap was fake, and it was all embedded in a box that no doubt helped it function somehow. Even using a jeweler’s loupe, there were no outward signs that it was one of the most exciting next-generation display technologies. Yet, it was.

This new MicroLED it goes further into the thin end of the electromagnetic spectrum than competing types by incorporating four ultraviolet LEDs per pixel. In contrast, most LED-based displays on the market today use a version of blue LEDs, plus red and green quantum dots, to create the red, green and blue you need to create an image. Many other displays use phosphors instead of quantum dots, while a few use red, green, and blue LEDs.

Look at this: The best TVs of CES 2025: among many new screens, choose 4

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If this seems strange that’s because it is. He is also, as you have seen, very intelligent. It could also reduce the currently exorbitant cost of MicroLED displays. Here’s what I learned.

UV LEDs

First, and this was also one of my questions, yes, this is for sure. You may have read or heard some stories over the past few years where industrial grade UV lighting has been used incorrectly, which led to skin and eye damage. One of the amazing things about quantum dots is that they convert light into different wavelengths almost perfectly. What little UV is left after most of it is converted by the QDs to some other color is blocked by the display glass and a filter.

The use of UV LEDs in a MicroLED display has several benefits, although they are perhaps not as world-changing as they seem. quantum dots to OLED or a new technology such as nanoLED. It’s mostly on the manufacturing side. MicroLED is one of the newest display technologies, and although it has a lot of promise, it is currently quite difficult to manufacture. That’s one of the reasons why MicroLED displays are so expensive.

If you strip away all the bits and bobs, at its core a typical MicroLED display consists of millions of red, green and blue LEDs. Three of these are placed together to form each pixel. Without diving too deep, we’ll just state the obvious that this is hard to do. Using different red, green and blue LED materials presents some manufacturing challenges. Challenges that the use of all blue LEDs and the addition of red and green quantum dots help partially alleviate.

The use of UV LEDs goes a step further. Instead of blue LEDs creating blue light and exciting red and green QDs, UV light excites red, green and blue QDs. So each subpixel is the same, just with a different flavor of QD on top. This reduces complexity and theoretically increases yields and thus lowers manufacturing costs. Blue quantum dots are not as commonly used as red and green. The beauty of quantum dots is that making them different sizes, which is what determines the wavelength (color) they emit, is relatively easy. It is easier, at least in theory, than using different LED materials for different subpixel colors. Using UV LEDs introduces its own challenges, but according to pro-UV LED companies like Applied Materialsthese are potentially easier to overcome.

Another interesting aspect of this method, at least as currently implemented, is to use four subpixels instead of three. Because of the relatively high probability of dead pixels for any MicroLED display, having a “spare” subpixel to use in case one of the red, green, or blue subpixels fails has the potential to increase yields. A dead subpixel is found in the manufacturing process, and whatever subpixel color is not working will get a spray of that color. While this fourth subpixel would increase the overall cost of this aspect of production by 33% or more, the researchers estimate that the performance will improve enough to be more than worth it.

Another potential advantage for the manufacturing process is that it can self-heal. Some manufacturers want to use ink-jet printing for small MicroLED displays, as there are possible cost benefits. This method works on larger displays, but MicroLEDs are, well, micro.

Using a different formulation in the QD “ink”, a color can be deposited on the substrate, cured by its own LED because it emits UV, and then any spillover of that QD color ink on an adjacent subpixel can be washed away before the next subpixel gets its color splashed (see diagram above).

So each subpixel has only the QDs for its color even if the ink jet itself is not perfectly accurate, improving color accuracy and performance. Something about the efficiency of a pixel curing itself makes my brain happy.

The display

Which brings us back to Las Vegas and this bright, small screen. As you can probably tell from the image, it’s mocked up to be a smartwatch display. With a brightness of up to 1,000 nits, it was very bright in a dark room. CTC, the manufacturer and part of the Foxconn group, estimates that in full production it could reach 3,000 nits.

Why, you might ask, do you need a 3000 nit smartwatch if you’re not trying to signal passing spaceships? To shine it in your eyeballs. One of the big potential uses for MicroLED is for AR and VR headsets, where tiny, efficient, extremely high-resolution displays are vital. It’s also like your TV – it doesn’t always output its maximum brightness. Have that brightness potential it opens up a wider range of possibilities.

Future displays

The question is always, “When will it come out?” It’s a little hard to answer beyond, “not now.” MicroLED in general and UV MicroLED specifically are both in the early stages of their development. There are MicroLED displays on the market, but it is clear that many companies want many more MicroLED displays on the market. The trend is to ditch LCD and OLED all together, but then again I’ve been writing about the death of LCD for over a decade, so who knows. We’ll likely see more of these later in the year and at next year’s CES for sure.

In addition to covering audio and display technology, Geoff does photography tours of cool museums and places around the world, including nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, medieval castlesepic Road trips of 10,000 kilometers and more.

Also, check it out Budget Travel for Dummieshis travel book, and his best-selling sci-fi novel about the city’s submarines. You can follow him Instagram and YouTube.