Nanocrystals could lead to lower-cost digital displays

At the moment, each colour in digital devices such as Blu-ray DVD players is made with different semiconductor materials and by elaborate crystal growth processes.

The researchers at Brown University and QD Vision believe their technology could open doors to making products such as cheaper, more efficient high-performance digital displays.

‘Today, in order to create a laser display with arbitrary colours, from white to shades of pink or teal, you’d need these three separate material systems to come together in the form of three distinct lasers that in no way, shape or form would have anything in common,’ said Arto Nurmikko, professor of engineering at Brown University.

The materials in the prototype lasers are nanometre-sized semiconductor particles called colloidal quantum dots or nanocrystals with an inner core of cadmium and selenium alloy and a coating of zinc, cadmium and sulphur alloy and a proprietary organic molecular glue.

Chemists at QD Vision in Massachusetts synthesise the nanocrystals using a wet chemistry process that allows them to precisely vary the nanocrystal size by varying the production time.