Exploring Quantum Dot and OLED for Wide Color Gamut

WCG most commonly refers to Wide Color Gamut, an advanced display technology. It can present a broader and more abundant color range compared with traditional standard color gamut technology, which has become a key performance parameter for modern display devices such as monitors, TVs, and projectors. The detailed introduction is as follows:

Digital Cinema: Most modern cinemas use projectors based on the DCI-P3 wide-color-gamut standard, which can restore the color style designed by the director to the greatest extent and bring the audience a cinema-level viewing experience.

Definition and Judging StandardThe so-called color gamut refers to the range of colors that a display device can produce or perceive. WCG expands this range, enabling the device to display more color details and more saturated color effects. Internationally, a display device with a color coverage rate reaching 92% of the NTSC color gamut standard is generally recognized as a wide-color-gamut device. Common wide-color-gamut standards also include DCI-P3 (widely used in film and television), Adobe RGB (for professional photography and printing), and Rec.2020 (for 8K ultra-high-definition fields), etc.

Core Implementation TechnologiesWCG mainly relies on material and backlight technology upgrades to expand the color range, and the common implementation methods are as follows:

Quantum Dot Technology: It is a mainstream solution for wide color gamut. By using red and green quantum dot materials to convert blue LED backlight into white light, the spectrum half-peak width is narrow, which can achieve high color purity. Many QLED TVs on the market adopt this technology to improve color gamut coverage.

Narrow-band Phosphor Technology: Materials such as β-SiAlON and KSF narrow-band phosphors are used to match blue LEDs. This technology has stable performance and low cost, and is widely used in mid-range LCD displays.

Dual-wavelength LED Technology: For example, blue-green dual-wavelength LEDs. The green half-peak width can reach 30 – 35nm, which is better than traditional phosphor materials. It has advantages such as stable wavelength and simple driving, and can achieve ultra-high color gamut effects.

Self-luminous Technology: OLED and other self-luminous devices can precisely control the color of each pixel, and can naturally support wide color gamut. For example, many high-end OLED TVs can cover more than 98% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

Key Advantages and DisadvantagesAspectDetailsAdvantagesFirstly, it has more realistic color reproduction. It can restore the rich colors in real scenes, making the images in movies, games and photos more vivid and immersive. Secondly, it meets professional needs. It can accurately display various colors required in the production process for professional fields such as photography retouching, video editing and printing, avoiding color distortion. Thirdly, it is compatible with high-quality content. It can perfectly match HDR video, 4K/8K ultra-high-definition film and television and other content. Most of these contents are produced based on wide-color-gamut standards.DisadvantagesOn one hand, there is a risk of color distortion in ordinary content. When displaying traditional sRGB content (such as web pages and office documents), uncalibrated wide-color-gamut devices may have overly saturated colors, causing visual discomfort. On the other hand, the cost is higher. The research and development and production costs of quantum dots and other related materials and components are relatively high, which will increase the selling price of display devices. In addition, wide-color-gamut displays are prone to color banding. It usually needs to be matched with 10-bit or higher color depth technology to reduce this problem, which further increases the technical cost.

Typical Application Scenarios

Consumer Electronics: It is widely used in mid-to-high-end smart TVs, gaming monitors and tablet computers. For example, gaming monitors supporting DCI-P3 wide color gamut can bring more realistic game scenes; high-end TVs combined with Mini-LED technology can make the picture close to the display effect of OLED.

Professional Production Fields: It is a necessary configuration for professional displays in film and television post-production, advertising design and photography studios. Designers and editors can rely on it to ensure the consistency of color effects in the process of creation, proofing and output.