GE recently announced a research breakthrough that will reportedly improve the color and crispness of images displayed on light-emitting diode (LED) devices—everything from cell phones and tablets to televisions. Scientists at GE Lighting and GE Global Research developed a phosphor powder that, when packaged inside an LED, push the picture quality of LED electronics to new heights.

How It Works

GE’s patented solution involves adding potassium fluorosilicate (PFS) doped with manganese as a red line emitter to an LED. The use of the PFS phosphor in LED systems generates a reddish color that’s sharper, cleaner, and truer than the state-of-the-art nitride phosphor—resulting in less color bleed and a richer picture.

“Backlit displays consist of an array of LEDs fed into a waveguide to filter out red, green, and blue,” said Anant Setlur, materials scientist and leader on the phosphors effort at GE Global Research. “In most of the devices you see on the market today, the red component in the LED is low quality, causing greens to look yellowish; this negatively impacts the overall picture quality. What we’ve achieved here allows for more natural color in consumer electronics. The difference in picture quality is stunning.”

Finding a Market

GE Ventures has licensed the technology patents to Sharp Corp. and Nichia Corp., both of which are manufacturing and packaging LEDs containing PFS phosphor material for use as LED backlights in a wide range of liquid crystal display (LCD) products. In addition, several display companies have recently launched tablets and smartphones containing LED devices supplied by these licensees.

“Sharp and Nichia are world-class leaders in the design and sale of LEDs,” said Mike Petracci, general manager of licensing for GE Ventures. “We are pleased to bring this breakthrough to market.”

 For additional information, visit www.geglobalresearch.com.