Impact of nanotechnology in flat panel display industry

Summary form only given. Flat panel display industry is a highly competitive area, globally driven by the intricate balance between technical advancement toward better performance and the ever demanding production cost. Along the vertically integrated manufacturing of FPD´s, there always exists a technology-cost bottle neck that defines and often limits the growth of the market. Nanotechnology, as a collective field of precision materials science and engineering, provides rich opportunities in innovations in all aspects of FPDs: Carbon nanotubes for efficient field emission display, patterned surface-alignment for memory LCDs, nanostructure-reinforced glass substrate, nanophase-separated polymer films for self-assembled antireflection coating, nano-metalic particles for conductive ink semiconductor quantum dots for color filters and fluorescent screens nano-imprinting, scanned probe fabrication, high-resolution inkjet printing, and many more. In the face of FPD development in the past few decades, these emerging technologies appear qualitatively new and sometimes even disruptive in the sense that, if properly integrated, they will profoundly revolutionize the basis of the industry. In this paper, the author would like to outline my personal perspective about how this will happen and change the industry to become compatible with the increasing environmental pressure without sacrificing the display performance.