Canon Develops Quantum Dot OLED Materials Without Rare Metals (nikkei.com) 36
Canon has developed a material for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels that does not use rare metals, Nikkei reported. From the report: This move comes as the Japanese company aims to reduce its dependence on major rare metal producers such as those in China. Canon plans to commercialize the technology within a few years, paving the way for securing stable production without being affected by geopolitical risks. The new material is quantum dots (QD), tiny semiconductor particles with a diameter of 1 nanometer. When irradiated with light or injected with an electric current, the particles emit vivid colors.
Other quantum dots are already used for high-end OLED televisions. Samsung Electronics mass-produces quantum dots, but it uses the compound indium phosphide. Indium is a rare metal produced in extremely small quantities, with China being the major source. Canon's new material uses lead, which is easily procured from recycled raw materials in "urban mines." Canon aims to commercialize the material in the mid-2020s by establishing technology for mass production. Canon uses lead in some of its compounds as a substitute for indium. Lead usually leads to results that are less durable than with indium, but by leveraging its expertise in compounding materials such as toner and ink for office equipment, the company has devised a compound that is as durable as indium.
Other quantum dots are already used for high-end OLED televisions. Samsung Electronics mass-produces quantum dots, but it uses the compound indium phosphide. Indium is a rare metal produced in extremely small quantities, with China being the major source. Canon's new material uses lead, which is easily procured from recycled raw materials in "urban mines." Canon aims to commercialize the material in the mid-2020s by establishing technology for mass production. Canon uses lead in some of its compounds as a substitute for indium. Lead usually leads to results that are less durable than with indium, but by leveraging its expertise in compounding materials such as toner and ink for office equipment, the company has devised a compound that is as durable as indium.
rare-earths (Score:1)
The wiki
The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare-earths or, in context, rare-earth oxides, and sometimes the lanthanides (although yttrium and scandium, which do not belong to this series, are usually included as rare-earths),[1] are a set of 17 nearly indistinguishable lustrous silvery-white soft heavy metals. Compounds containing rare-earths have diverse applications in electrical and electronic components, lasers, glass, magnetic materials, and industrial processes.
At no point are they called rare metals.
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The term is rare-earth metals, but they are also rare metals.
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Actually, rare earths are not rare and hence not rare metals.
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There exist rare in the context of the composition of the earths crust.
And there exists rare in the context of available in the open market.
Gold and platinum are rare in the earths crust, but ironically readily available in the open market because they are easy to mine.
Rare earths are abundant in the earths crust but rare in the open market because they aren't readily mined and available.
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Actually, they're called rare earths because they were (are?) quite difficult to refine into pure elements. Many of them aren't really all that rare, they're just so similar to something else, or several something elses, that it's difficult to extract them.
You can generally say that it *is* because of their composition, if you're talking about the composition of their electron shells. They did to have variations in the structure of their inner electron shells rather than in the outermost layer. (Which i
Lead in OLED (Score:1)
That might be a deal breaker to have lead do a comeback in modern electronics. It was banned from solder, so it might be a hard sell to put something full of lead against your face.
Tiny, tiny, tiny amounts, and RoHS (Score:5, Informative)
The amount of lead is probably extremely small, and not aerosolized. I very much doubt that's a problem. Also, they have to qualify under the EU's RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment), that has become the norm for the global market.
Re:Lead in OLED (Score:5, Informative)
You'd be surprised how much lead people put against their faces. One of the most common exposures to lead is still in cosmetics. Data from the FDA "show that over 99% of the cosmetic lip products and externally applied cosmetics on the U.S. market contain lead at levels below 10 ppm." https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/... [fda.gov]
Lead has been a health concern for years. In Roman times it was even used as a sweetener! Lead still remains in the environment in paints, ceramics, water pipes and plumbing materials, solders, gasoline, batteries, ammunition, CRT displays, and cosmetics.
The thin layer in the ink used to produce the quantum dot OLED displays is probably less than the amount used to solder the remaining components on the PCBs. (unless Canon is using lead-free solder in their complete manufacturing process.) We probably already have enough lead in our homes (UPS batteries, lead-crystal champagne flutes, early o'scope display tubes, copper pipe solder, A/C line solder, every pre-2010 electronic device, etc) to source the few milligrams the quantum dots would require.
Re:Lead in OLED (Score:5, Funny)
"Modern very expensive high-end paint starts pealing after just a few years"
Pealing?
That's something I would pay for, to listen to the symphony of my house in a storm!
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And where do you think that paint ends up? Do you think it magically disappears in 50+ years?
No, it just dissolves into the environment around your house, and from there slowly works it's way up the food chain until it reaches you again. It is in no way easy to avoid lead once it is released into environment, because it never disappears.
Enclosed lead, as I assume it would be in an OLED, could be safe. But only if disposal is safe, and you actually take the lead out. Not so safe if it just goes to a landfill
Re:Lead in OLED (Score:4, Informative)
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Lead is a neurotoxin and there is no "safe" level for children.
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... or kids playing in the yard or in the house who ingest lead paint chips.
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You'd be surprised how much lead people put against their faces.
You'd be surprised where lead shows up. Many of those small cables used in photography have lead in them to keep them flexible. There is a California notice inside the packaging talking about the lead in the product.
Re:Lead in OLED (Score:5, Informative)
To be clear lead wasn't banned from solder. Lead was banned *IN CONCENTRATIONS* above 0.1% from solder. It isn't actually outright banned in electronics and as long as the material makes up less than 0.1% of the panel it would even get the RoHS stamp of approval despite having lead in it. Given that they are looking to replace indium tin oxide in this application with lead, they are talking about incredibly small amounts of lead, not a chunk of the element which made up a considerable part of electrical connections the likes of which are now banned.
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Better Idea (Score:1)
Make an OLED that doesn't have burn-in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] - 100 TV burn-in Test
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The results of their burn in tests so far are here: https://www.rtings.com/tv/test... [rtings.com]
So far not seeing any major issues on Samsung QD OLED. Some of the 8k panels seem to have an issue with their camera, but they haven't degraded in a way you would notice from new.
Hopefully LG will adopt QD tech at some point. It greatly reduces power consumption and colour accuracy is better too.
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They should do diffs, it's hard to tell if the non-uniformity of the screens is degradation or if they started like that.
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I think their camera and lighting set-up might not be up to the job. For example their graphs show not change in peak brightness, but the photos show the whole screen is darker or lighter.
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QD OLED uses blue or ultraviolet LEDs, with the intensity of each varied to produce the right intensity sub-pixel. The quantum dots change the frequency of the blue/UV light into red and green (and blue if it's UV).
The quantum dots don't attenuate the light, the current through the LED does.
The normal colour filters on OLED screens only let through about 30% of the light, so they need super bright LEDs. That means lots of power and heat. QD OLED is much more efficient, and the quantum dots produce more accu
"Urban Mines" (Score:1)
So, does that mean the guy who broke in last year and stole my old TV wasn't actually a thief, he was an "urban miner"?
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Avoiding OLED For Reliability's Sake (Score:2)