Micro-light-emitting diodes with quantum dots in display technology

TLDR

Micro‑LEDs are poised to become the core of next‑generation displays for personalized devices, but as chip sizes fall below 20 µm conventional phosphor conversion fails to deliver sufficient luminance, so quantum‑dot materials—offering high quantum yield, narrow bandwidth, color tunability, and nanoscale size—are expected to provide a powerful full‑color solution. This review surveys recent advances in μ‑LED and QD integration for display technology, covering device design, large‑scale transfer, and full‑color strategies, and highlights their promising applications. The authors examine μ‑LED design and fabrication, large‑scale transfer techniques, QD full‑color strategies, and discuss QD stability, patterning, deposition, and the challenges facing μ‑LED displays. The review concludes that QD‑based μ‑LED displays hold a bright future, with advanced applications poised to drive next‑generation display innovation.

Abstract

Micro-light-emitting diodes (μ-LEDs) are regarded as the cornerstone of next-generation display technology to meet the personalised demands of advanced applications, such as mobile phones, wearable watches, virtual/augmented reality, micro-projectors and ultrahigh-definition TVs. However, as the LED chip size shrinks to below 20 μm, conventional phosphor colour conversion cannot present sufficient luminance and yield to support high-resolution displays due to the low absorption cross-section. The emergence of quantum dot (QD) materials is expected to fill this gap due to their remarkable photoluminescence, narrow bandwidth emission, colour tuneability, high quantum yield and nanoscale size, providing a powerful full-colour solution for μ-LED displays. Here, we comprehensively review the latest progress concerning the implementation of μ-LEDs and QDs in display technology, including μ-LED design and fabrication, large-scale μ-LED transfer and QD full-colour strategy. Outlooks on QD stability, patterning and deposition and challenges of μ-LED displays are also provided. Finally, we discuss the advanced applications of QD-based μ-LED displays, showing the bright future of this technology.