The First Use of Quantum Dots in a Mass Produced Consumer Electronics Product--Sony TVs

"Sony is using nanoscale particles called quantum dots to significantly improve the color of some of its high-end Bravia televisions. It showed off the technology, which increases the range of colors that an LCD television can display by about 50 percent, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. This marks the first time that quantum dots—which for a long time have fascinated researchers because of their unusual electronic and optical properties—have been used in a mass-produced consumer electronics product."  

"The product that’s finally coming to market is far different. Sony’s new television is a modified LCD TV. In LCD televisions, each pixel is illuminated from behind by a white backlight, and different colors are created by changing the amount of light allowed to pass through three different filters—one red, one green, and one blue. LCDs originally used fluorescent bulbs as the backlight, but now most use LEDs (marketers call these products LED LCDs). QD Vision uses quantum dots to enhance the LED backlight."

"The new technology is a hit with some industry watchers (one publication named the new Sony KD-65X9000A, one of the TVs to feature the quantum dots, “Best in Show” at CES). Sony is pairing the quantum dot backlighting with other innovations, such as 3-D and and ultra-high 4K resolution, which it hopes will boost sales. Sales of TVs have been flagging.  

"Other quantum dot displays are in the works. For example, last year Nanosys announced it would have a quantum dot backlight product in a notebook in 2013, but it hasn’t disclosed the specific product (see “Quantum Dots Give Notebooks a New Glow”) (MIT TechnologyReview.com, accessed 01-14-2013).