Quantum Dot Technology On Its Way to Smartphones, Tablets and TVs

just when you thought display technology could hardly get any better, along come quantum dots, making screens more colorful while consuming less power.

This is not just some pie-in-the-sky dream of scientists and geeks. Nanosys and 3M have put this Star Trek-like tech to work, and it's gone way beyond the experimental stage, to where it's now almost ready to be built into smart phones, tablets and TVs.

The two companies said in a press release they'll have samples available to manufacturers by the "late second quarter of this year," which means companies interested in using this technology in their screens might be getting their hands on it within five weeks or so.

What are quantum dots, anyway? They are light-emitting nanoparticles.

What are quantum dots, anyway? They are light-emitting nanoparticles. They're so small that they measure just 2 to 10 nanometers in diameter, which is about the width of 50 atoms lined up next to each other. That's 10,000 times narrower than a human hair.

Another weird characteristic of these tiny points of light is their precisely controllable size, and as their size is changed, so is the wavelength of the light they emit. That means they can produce many more colors than conventional pixels, resulting in far more colorful screens.

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In these new screens, the dots have been placed in 3M's Quantum Dot Enhancement Film (QDEF), which the company says can "make devices such as smartphones, tablets and televisions lighter, brighter and more energy-efficient."

The special film will serve as a backlight for LCD displays, and because it offers such precise control of color, it can shine in exactly the right color through specific pixels on the screens, resulting in a much wider range of color. 3M says trillions of those little dots can fit in one backlight unit for an LCD, replacing the less-efficient and less-precise LED or florescent backlights in today's LCD screens.

Best of all, because this quantum dot enhancement film is replacing just the backlight in an LCD display, this new technology can be dropped into current LCD designs, requiring no changes in current manufacturing processes for LCD displays.

Where do you think this new technology will show up first — smartphones, tablets or TVs?