- Did you know that part
of your gaming monitor or big screen TV was
actually grown in a VAT? It looks like a microbrewery,
but this is actually a chemical reactor creating Quantum Dots. The tech that's not only
responsible for raising the color accuracy bar
in millions of displays, but also the key
technology behind Samsung's still unreleased QD-OLED displays. The new best display you can get. Today I'm gonna show you how quantum dots are made in America in
this crazy facility, what role they're playing in bringing microLED displays to
market, and why ultimately quantum dots themselves might make OLED and microLED displays obsolete. As for who, our sponsor Crucial. Get more done with
Crucial's P5 Plus NVME SSD. With up to 6,600 megabytes per second, sequential reads, and
a five star warranty, Crucial makes tech to last. Get yours today at the link below. (opening jingle) (rhythmic drumming) Whether it's a monitor or an LCD TV, you may be watching
this video on a display with quantum dot enhancement film. That's the term that Nanosys,
the company responsible for every quantum dot product that's ever been brought to market, gives to this. The polymer film containing
red and green quantum dots that's placed among the myriad
filmed filters and diffusers that manipulate light
on its way to your eye. But what about these quantum
dots is quantum exactly? Are they just super small? Actually, it has to do with the principle by which they operate:
quantum confinement. Each quantum dot is a
molecule that will trap or confine energy for as long as it can before letting it escape in
the form of colored light. The color of the light that's injected by the quantum dot is
precisely related to its size. Give the energy a lot of
room to tire itself out and it'll emit a low
frequency light like red. Give it less runway and it'll emit a higher energy green light. Mixing a solution of red
and green quantum dots along with a clear polymer
creates these sheets which have made the HDR content we love far more stunning and color accurate. They take the wide band
of colors that comprise the white light of a typical LCD backlight and isolate just the true
red and true green light, discarding the adjacent
unwanted colors like orange and lime and other colors
that aren't even fruits. What comes out from the
other side of this film then is a new white light made
with cleaner ingredients that the LCD can then pixelate
with its RGB subpixels. It smells like hot oil in here! The great thing about quantum dots is that you can change their size and therefore the color they emit super incrementally. One nanometer steps. And this is done simply by changing the temperature that they're cooking at. For example, the blue quantum dot crystal is only 100 atoms. And in a barrel of blue
quantum dot material that Nanosys ships to its customers, folks like Samsung Display
and BOE, every quantum dot in that 16 gallon barrel
has to be 100 atoms. This seemingly impossible
feat is accomplished through chemical self-assembly,
which is automated with this badass industrial equipment and this badass industrial software. It's basically a chemical
reaction where each atom is deposited into its crystal
site by another chemical which becomes a by-product
that's later discarded. The chemical reaction is
endothermic which means it requires energy, so
they just heat the reactor. Because the outside of
this reactor is made with a material similar to the
heat shields NASA uses, we can't see what's going on inside. But we can see the wavelength emitted by the growing crystals
because of an optical probe that's plunged inside
the super hot liquid. Now this reactor is called Corey. And this one right here is called Shelly. And that speaks to the multi-step process the dots go through
wherein the first reactor, the "core" of the quantum dot created, and then later a shell is grown around it. This helps eliminate defects
that exist on the core. Which is important because a defective quantum dot won't eject its energy, creating excess heat that could degrade, or yellow, the enhancement
film surrounding it. Next, the quantum dots are purified and chemical by-products are removed before the final step, ligand exchange. Liquid ligans that are
cured by UV light to form a solid structure in a
quantum dot enhancement film may require different properties than say the ligands used in quantum dot ink that needs to shoot out
of an Inkjet printer head. That's right. Ink. The next gen quantum dot
displays hitting the market in 2022 are not LCDs
with enhancement film. They're OLED displays with quantum dots printed directly onto the OLED emitters. And here's why that's a really big deal. Current big screen OLEDs are technically W-OLEDs and LG makes them all. The emitters are red, blue, and green mixed together to create white. The subpixels use color filters to split that white light back
out because the colors aren't very pure and the voltage required to drive the organic emitters to high brightness is damaging to them. We're talking burn-in and short lifespan. That's why there's a fourth clear subpixel that just shines white light through. These next gen OLEDs though, which Samsung calls QD-OLEDs, don't need a white pixel in order
to get high brightness. They use only blue emitters
and they shine them through red and green quantum dot ink for color conversion, not filtering. Now we haven't seen a
finished product yet. Get subscribed for when we do. But these displays should be brighter, longer lasting, and have
better viewing angles than anything we've seen so far. Super exciting stuff. I can't wait. But James, you might say,
why would I buy a QD-OLED When MicroLED is right around the corner? Is Nanosys putting its
eggs in the wrong basket? Actually, they're in every basket. In early 2021 Nanosys
acquired Glo, a leader in the development of
MicroLEDs, but I'll be honest, at first I didn't understand how MicroLED could benefit from quantum dots since a MicroLED display
should already have tiny R, G, and B LEDs that it
turns on and off at will. And they do. But have you ever wondered
why the MicroLED TVs that are available today are so huge? It's because the pixels are so big, and they have to be big
because of the D in LED. The Diode. At the center of a pixel, the diode can efficiently create, say, blue. But at the edges of a
pixel, where the material has been snipped off in order to conform to the pixel shape, the diode
gets a lot less efficient and in some cases won't
emit any light at all. But it will produce heat,
reducing durability. This isn't a big deal if the pixels are large since there's more juicy emitting area compared to the edge area. But that ratio changes as
the pixels get smaller. Red and green are particularly
affected by this issue, so if you're talking about
a very small display, like in a pair of
glasses, where you need it to be super battery efficient, while also having a really really bright display so you can see everything on a sunny day, well the limits of MiniLEDs can quickly make them non-viable. Put some quantum dot color converting ink on those dialogues though, and suddenly the problem is far more tractable. As is the manufacturing and cost of big screen MicroLED TVs. (electropop music) Oh my god. Ahh! How do you do this? Cool. I got one. Yeah! And finally, there's the long game. Quantum dots that are not charged by shining a light on them, but instead are directly connected to the display's thin film transistors, replacing LEDs. And yeah, I'm sure the
performance would be awesome, but the real disruption from these devices would be in the cost
and the manufacturing. Right now, virtually all
commercially available OLEDs are created using evaporatively
deposited materials in a giant, grossly
expensive vacuum chamber. The limitations of these chambers is why TVs come in the sizes that they do. It's why the mother glass they're cut from is the size it is. And it's why display
manufacturing has been a state-sponsored enterprise
up until this point. First in Japan, then Korea, and now China. But once a flagship
display manufacturing plant can be made for 10% of
the cost, private equity can build a fab, and oddly
shaped display panels for, say, German cars can
be produced in Germany. Supply chains will be less susceptible to major disruption
like they are right now. And there will be more competition in display manufacturing
with more innovation. But for now, all the innovation is happening here in California at the Nanosys Research
and Manufacturing Facility, so huge thanks to these
guys for letting us in behind the curtain, and big thanks to our sponsor Micro Center. Micro Center has partnered
with ASUS to offer a new, easy to use online PC builder tool. The tool helps customers
build their own computer with three different base starting points: value, performance, and ultimate. Each base system includes a case with a pre-installed motherboard, power supply, and separately
packaged graphics card. You can add in your choice
of CPU between AMD and Intel as well as your preference
of RAM, storage, and OS. The parts can be arranged for same day in store pickup, or
for an added build fee, Micro Center will assemble
the computer for you. If you're unsure of what parts are needed, Micro Center's expert technicians can walk you through selecting components, so check out Micro Center's new PC builder and receive a free 240 gigabyte SSD if you're a new customer
at the links below. If you're looking for
something else to watch check out the part one to
this video, The Future of TVs. We talk more about Nanosys
and backlights and everything, and all that good stuff in that video. Check it out. I think this went really well. High five.
I hear the first QD OLED monitors are coming next year. Like 34 inch ones. I wonder when they will actually be affordable to most people at similar to IPS prices.
Display manufacturing will no longer be a state-sponsored enterprise? Press X to doubt. I'm sure it will still be, just in another form maybe.
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As someone whose been sitting out the OLED craze for now due to concerns about longevity (burn in), but has also been drooling over the exquisite contrast of OLEDs, it is very possible that my 9 year old monitors and my significantly older TV aren't getting replaced until something like the new Samsung QD OLEDs become available and are proven against the competition. But once I feel I can rely on the tech, I will be more than ready to upgrade the lot. Here's hoping that quantum dots can deliver on that promise.
Meanwhile, IPS still glows.
really wish they didnt have james yelling over a fan because they wanted his arms in the vaccuum chamber for the shot