Display Technologies

Since the beginning of computer era, there have been a number of technologies used
for the display of output. The major technologies are CRT, LCD, Plasma, LED and
OLED displays.
1. Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) Monitors
These monitors employ the CRT technology to create a display. The CRT (also known

as picture tube) receives the

signals through a cable and the signal is decoded by the display controller which finally
appears on a phosphor screen. The detailed working is as following:
As shown in the image CRTs have a conical shape and there is an electron gun or
cathode ray gun at the back end of the monitor and a phosphor screen in the front. The
electron gun fires a stream of electrons towards the display screen through a vacuum
tube. This stream of electrons is also known as cathode rays. At the middle of the
monitor, there are magnetic anodes which are magnetized in accordance with the
instruction from the display controller. When electrons (cathode rays) pass through the
magnetic anodes, they are pushed or pulled in one direction or other depending on the
magnetic field on the anodes. This directs the electrons towards the correct part of
phosphor coating inside the display glass. When electrons strikes the phosphor coated
screen passing through a mesh (shadow mask or aperture grill), the phosphor lights up
making a displayable dot on the computer screen. There are three different colored
phosphors (Red, Green and Blue) for each pixel and the color of the pixel depends on
the phosphor on which the electrons strike.
This image shows the color combination schematic for phosphor particles. The monitor

that has a single electron gun

has three different
phosphors for each pixel. A cathode ray strikes to one or more of these phosphors and
the corresponding colored pixel appear on the screen. However high quality monitors
use individual electron gun for each color which improves the image quality. Distance
for two same colored phosphors (for single electron gun monitors) is known as dot pitch.
Lesser the dot pitch higher is the quality of monitors.
Aperture Grille v/s Shadow Mask
CRTs incorporate a metal sheet behind the display screen which affects the pixels on

the screen as well as

brightness on the screen.
Shadow mask is an obsolete technology in which there is a metal sheet with millions of
holes to pass electrons in order to hit the phosphor coating. The shadow mask covers
the entire screen thereby protecting the phosphors from stray ions (due to vacuum) and
also limits the strength of the rays reducing the brightness on the monitor.
Aperture grille is a mesh of wires rather than any metal sheet with holes in it. Although
the grill is fragile, it allows a brighter display.
What is the resolution of the screen? Resolution of a monitor tells how densely
pixels are arranged on the screen. A combination of dot pitch and the viewable image
area defines the maximum resolution of the screen. For example if a 21 inch monitor
screen with a viewable area of 401mm x 298mm has a dot pitch of 0.26 mm, then its
resolution is 1843 x 1370 pixels derived from a formula.

Written By:

Ashok Sharma
LED Monitors
In the previous decade, the display technology has changed significantly. LED displays

are one of the latest developments i

n this field. LED monitors use
light emitting diodes that acts as a performance booster in the monitors. Basically LED
monitors are the LCD monitors with a LED backlight to power up the LCD panel. It
means that LEDs are placed behind or around the LCD panel to enhance the luminosity
and video definition of the monitor screen.
As we have seen in the above section of LCD monitors, they use a cold cathode light as
backlight. In the LED monitors all the concepts are same except this backlight, which is
replaced by LEDs.
There are three different types of LED monitors available based on the manner how the
diodes are arranges in the monitor. These are Direct LEDs, Edge LEDs and RGB
LEDs. Both Edge and Direct LED display monitors use white diodes that are used to
illuminate the LCD panel to produce the improved picture quality. The arrangement of
LEDs
in
the
monitor
is
shown
in
the
below
image:

In the Direct LEDs display, white diodes are placed all over the panel to produce higher
quality image while the Edge LEDs display uses LEDs only on the borders of the LCD
panel. Direct LEDs are generally used in the production of high definition TV whereas
the Edge LEDs is mainly used in the production of computer screens. RGB LEDs
display is better among the three types of LED monitors as it uses red, green and blue
diodes to produce the lifelike images with amazing contrast ratio.

LCD v/s LED Monitors / Why LED displays are better than the LCD displays:
Both types of monitors work on the same technology. LED monitors are LCD monitors
with replaced cold cathode backlight to LED backlight. Here are the differences that
make the LED displays better than the LCDs:
Contrast and Black level of the LED screen is better than the LCD screens because the
liquid crystals cannot stop 100% of the backlight from cold cathode backlight and hence
when the black screen is to be shown on the monitor, it is not completely black (as

shown in the below image). But Edge LED screens perfectly show the black screen as
there
is
no
backlight
at

all.
Color accuracy for direct and edge LED displays and LCD displays are almost same but
the RGB LEDs display has quite better color accuracy.
When comparing the LED and LCD monitors with respect to viewing angle, they are
same as backlight has nothing to do with viewing angles.
LED displays consume less power. It is reported that they consume up to 40% less
power than the LCD displays.
LED displays do not use mercury (used in cathode lamps in LCD backlight) so they are
environment friendly.
The size of Edge and RGB monitors is slight thinner than the LCD monitors while prices
are slight higher.

Plasma Monitors
Plasma technology is another technology used in display devices. The basic idea

behind the plasma technology is to

illuminate tiny colored
fluorescent lights to create image pixels. Each pixel is made of three such fluorescent
lights red, green and blue lights. To create a wide range of colors, intensity of these
lights is varied accordingly.

The heart of plasma displays is plasma which is basically a gas (generally Xenon and
Neon) made up of free flowing electrons and ions. When the electrical current flows
through the plasma, negatively charged particles move towards the positively charged

area of the plasma and vice versa. This makes collisions which resultantly excite the
gas atoms in the plasma and then release the energy as photons of

light.

There are millions of tiny cells filled with the gas like xenon and neon. They are
positioned between two plates of glass known as front plate glass and rear plate glass.
Two transparent electrodes covered by an insulating dielectric material and
a magnesium oxide protective layer are also sandwiched between the glass plates on
both sides of the cells on the entire screen.

When the CPU sends the signals to the Plasma monitor, the corresponding electrodes
are charged which ionizes the gas in the intersecting cells by passing an electric
current. Due to the collisions between the gas ions they release energy in the form of
the photons of light which illuminate the respective cells. This process occurs thousands
of times in a small fraction of second making the display faster. The released ultraviolet
photons strike the phosphor material coated on the inner wall of the cell and hence
phosphor electrons jump to the higher energy level. When the electron falls back to its
normal state, it releases the energy as a visible light photon. Every pixel on the screen
is made of three different colored phosphors red, green and blue.
OLED Monitors
OLED, short for Organic Light Emitting Diode is the latest technology for display

devices. As the name suggests there

are some
organic material (containing carbon, like wood, plastic or polymers.) that is used to

convert the electric current into light. Since the LEDs are capable of producing different
colored light, they are directly used to produce the correct color and there is no need of
a backlight which saves power and space. With fast response time, wide viewing
angles, outstanding contrast levels and perfect brightness, OLED displays are surely
better than the existing other display technologies.

The heart of the OLED display is a stack of thin organic layers which is sandwiched
between two conductors - a transparent anode and a metallic cathode, which in turn are
sandwiched between two glass plates known as seal and substrate. The organic layer
consists of a hole-injection layer, a hole-transport layer, an emissive layer and an
electron-transport layer. When an appropriate voltage is applied, an electric current
flows from cathode to anode through the organic layers. The cathode give electrons to
the emissive layer of organic molecules while the anode takes equivalent electrons from
the conducting layer of organic molecules. At the boundary of emissive and conductive
layers, electrons and the holes are gathered. Here electrons are recombined with the
holes by releasing energy in the form of photon of light. Hence the organic layer emits
the light to produce the display. The color of the light depends on the type of organic
molecules while the brightness depends on the amount of the current applied. By
maximizing the recombination process in the emissive layer the output light can be
improved in OLED devices. Thus the emissive layer is slightly doped with highly
fluorescent molecules to enhance the electro-luminescent efficiency and control of color.

Advantage over conventional display technologies:

The fabrication process is easy and the display devices are thinner than the

conventional display devices.

Comparing it with the LCD devices, OLED displays can be viewed from different angles
as they are emissive devices i.e. they emit light rather than modulating transmitted or
reflected light.
They do not use backlight.
The driving voltage and total power consumption is low as comparing to other display
technologies.
The material used are eco friendly and do not use lead or other such material.