MicroLEDs have a bright future in displays and medicine

Scaling traditional light emitting diodes (LEDs) down by orders of magnitude to micron lengthscales brings new opportunities in research efforts. Jingyu Lin and Hongxing Jiang review recent developments and current challenges in microLED research, their wide-ranging applications and prospective uses.

The efficiency, brightness, robustness and self-emissive characteristics make traditional LEDs attractive for many applications. MicroLEDs share these same features and offer even more opportunities. In particular, their smaller size translates to significantly higher resolution for large, flat-panel displays, TVs and wearable technologies.

“The intrinsic properties of inorganic semiconductor LEDs, plus the high resolution offered by microLEDs, make microLEDs the ultimate display technology,” Jiang said.

However, the benefits of microLEDs have associated challenges. For one, full color microLED microdisplays are difficult to achieve due to the lack of red indium gallium nitride wafers.

“The fabrication and integration with driving systems are more complex for microLED-based display systems than those based on typical large LEDs,” said Lin.

Once these challenges are overcome, microLEDs are poised to become the technology of choice for 3D, augmented reality, virtual reality and large flat-panel display applications, as well as for developing microarrays to aid with vision loss. In addition, the lower optical power density compared to conventional lasers opens up promising developments for use as neural probes and neuron simulation applications as a result of reduced damage to neurons and cells.

Source: “Development of microLED,” by J. Y. Lin and H. X. Jiang, Applied Physics Letters (2020). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5145201 .