OLED’s are Organic Light Emitting Diodes. Instead of using a synthetic polymer to produce light, an organic substrate is used. This has several advantages. A large display can be created as OLED’s can be printed easily. They produce their own light, as apposed to a TFT display which relies on a stain-glass effect where a backlight is needed.

As they produce their own light, OLED’s lend themselves perfectly for displays. The lack of backlighting means their power consumption is reduced dramatically compared to a TFT or even a CRT unit. Not only are they power friendly, but they also can be made into a thin sheet (~5mm) and hence replace TFT (flat screen) with a thinner display (or at least a similar sized unit with reduced power consumption).

OLED’s can be made on flexible surfaces which is useful for more innovative displays. As they produce their own light, their viewing angle is vastly improved over TFTs. Another benefit of this is that they can display true off (e.g. black). A TFT or even a CRT cannot display true black as they are always on. TFT’s block the light with polorisers which are never 100& effective and hence black appears grey. With an OLED, black is off and no light is being emitted allowing for an improved picture.

However, with all of these advantages there comes several disadvantages. The main being the life expectancy of the blue coloured units. They had a seriously decreased lifespan compared to the other colours in the display. However this has been improved on recently.

Other problems included the organic LED’s distaste for water. Any water that is introduced to the display would destroy the unit.

Due to the high output of the green element in OLED displays, OLED screens are often green biased unless appropriate limiting actions are taken.