Researchers from the University of Central Florida have developed a new approach to creating displays of digital devices. This method involves adjusting the color of the pixel by applying an electrical voltage. It will allow to increase the resolution of TV screens, smartphones and other devices as a maximum three times.

Video screens consist of hundreds of thousands of pixels, which, displaying different colors, form an image. Within the existing technology, each of these pixels contains three subpixels – one red, one green and one blue.

But scientists from the Center for NanoScience Technology Center of the University of Central Florida have found a way to leave this model in the past. Assistant professor Debashis Chanda and doctoral student physicist Daniel Franklin suggested a way to adjust the colors of these subpixels.

Applying different voltage, they were able to change the colors of individual subpixels to red, green or blue – within the RGB palette – or to the gradients of these colors.

Debashis Chanda explains the essence of the invention:

«We can, for example, change the [color] of the red subpixel to blue. On other displays this is not possible, because they need three static filters to display the full RGB color. We now do not need this, [because] the color of a single pixel without subpixels can be adjusted within the available color gamut».

The results of such a promising research earlier in May 2017 were reported in the academic journal Nature Communications. Based on the existing technology screens, consisting of pixels, very common in the modern world, researchers have been able to provide this technology with those benefits that it previously did not possess.

By refusing to use the three static subpixels that currently make up every pixel, scientists have found a way to reduce the size of each single pixel of the display of the electronic device by three times, which means an increase in the number of pixels per screen area. Increasing the number of pixels in the display means increasing its resolution by three times.

The new development theoretically can find a significant application not only in televisions and other displays of modern devices, but also in helmets of augmented and virtual reality, which high resolution is necessary, since their screens are located very close to the eyes of the user.

Daniel Franklin supplemented the narrative of the new method:

«Displays without subpixels can significantly improve resolution. You will be able to have a much smaller surface to [display] all three [colors]».

And since in the displays made on the basis of the new method, there is no need to turn off some subpixels of the screen in order to reproduce exactly the color that is needed at the moment, the brightness of the screen will also increase.

In 2017, Debashis Chanda and Daniel Franklin also developed the first display concept, which uses the “plasmonic phenomenon”, which was also reported by the journal Nature Communications.

They created a surface with an “embossed nanostructure”, reminiscent of a box for eggs. This surface was covered with reflective aluminum. In order to convey the full color spectrum, scientists needed several variants of this innovative nanostructure. In the latest of the improvements in this development, the researchers found that modifying the surface roughness allows you to display a full range of colors using the same nanostructure.

The nanostructured coating can be easily integrated into the existing display technology, as there is no need to change or redesign the underlying hardware.

Daniel Franklin in the context of this development noted:

«This allows you to build on all the previous [new development] decades of LCD technology. We do not need to completely change the engineering approaches to do this».

Currently, researchers are scaling their displays to prepare the technology for use in real devices.

What improvements in devices can be realized thanks to a threefold increase in screen resolution?

Based on materials sciencedaily.com