Jeff Yurek provides some background on how quantum dots work, how they are made, and where they are manufactured in this explainer from Nanosys at SID Display Week 2025.
Intro
Welcome to the Nanosys booth! I’m going to walk you through a few of our demos this year.
Quantum Dot Explained
Quantum dots have a unique superpower we call spectrum engineering. This means we can create any wavelength in the visible spectrum simply by changing the size of the quantum dot.
Quantum dots are nanomaterials—tiny crystals between the size of a water molecule and a virus. By adjusting the crystal size, we control the band gap and electrical properties. Larger quantum dots absorb high-energy, short wavelengths and emit longer, lower-energy photons toward red. Smaller quantum dots emit higher-energy light toward blue.
Here are some vials showing the same material in different crystal sizes—each glowing a different color. It’s a great visual demonstration of how size controls color.
Why Does This Matter for Displays?
LCD displays use color filters—blue, green, and red—and need a backlight to pass light through these filters to produce the image you see. Manufacturers rarely change the color filters, but they do want to achieve different color gamuts. That’s where we come in: we engineer custom backlight spectrums to meet specific requirements.
For example:
- TVs often target over 99% DCI-P3 coverage. With a blue LED plus green-emitting quantum dots at 521 nm and red-emitting dots at 631 nm, we can achieve 100% DCI-P3.
- For BT.2020, we use 523 nm and 640 nm to reach 91%.
- QD-OLED displays typically use 525 nm and 640 nm bands.
Different applications require different solutions, and we customize accordingly.
Customer Journey
If you’re a display maker working with Nanosys, here’s the process:
- We review your target specifications.
- We develop a custom recipe.
- We manufacture quantum dots at our factory in Hiroshima, Japan.
Factory Tour
Our Hiroshima facility can produce enough quantum dots for about 40 million TVs per year—only one-eighth of its full capacity. The site includes an R&D center and a large-scale manufacturing building. All wavelengths mentioned earlier are available today in mass production quantities.
Supply Chain Integration
Once you have your quantum dots, they go into our supply chain partners’ products, such as Quantum Dot Enhancement Films (QDEF). These films can be placed in an LCD backlight to deliver high-performance color. Under UV light, you’ll see red and green quantum dots emitting light—proof of their incredible capability.
