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Sci Tech
Revolutionising display technology
RESEARCHERS OF Myongji University, Korea, have developed a way to improve liquid crystal displays (LCD), which could revolutionise display technology.
Published in the journal Semiconductor Science and Technology, Professor Yong-Sang Kim and his team propose a new structure for polycrystalline silicon thin film transistors (poly-Si TFT), which makes them more reliable when used in active matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCD), like those on lap top screens and television screens.
An AMLCD has a transistor for each pixel on the screen, which can be switched on or off. . Poly-Si TFTs are thin, light and can make higher resolution displays. The downside is that when applying poly-Si TFTs to AMLCDs, they leak current. A high leakage can cause the colour and brightness of the image to change.
Previous methods of minimising the leakage current have led to a reduction of the `on-state' current (which is the current flowing through the circuit when the transistor is switched on). This leads to a flickering screen, and reduces the performance of other parts of the circuit. The new gate insulator structure in the poly-Si TFTs, has reduced the leakage current by three orders of magnitude, with no loss to the on-state current.
The new transistors make the displays more reliable as their crystalline structure allows them to handle more information than the conventional amorphous transistors. So more of the circuitry (that would conventionally be placed externally) can be put onto the glass of the screen, which improves the reliability by reducing external connections.
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