Transparent OLED is a breakthrough transparent display technology that displays dynamic or interactive information on a transparent surface glass. This revolutionary display allows users to view what is shown on a glass video screen while still being able to see through it.
Transparent Display is an electronic display that allows the user to see what is shown on the glass screen while still being able to see through it. It is a technology that has been around for a decade or two, but only as of 2012 was it being incorporated by companies such as Samsung, Planar Systems, and taptl into consumer products like handheld devices, televisions, and other technology as well as building materials such as glass.
There are two major see-through display technologies, LCD and LED. The LCD technology is older, though OLED see-through displays are becoming more widely available. Both technologies are largely derivative from conventional display systems, but in see-through displays the difference between the absorptive nature of the LCD and emissive nature of the OLED gives them very different visual appearances. LCD systems impose a pattern of shading and colors on the background seen through the display, while OLED systems impose a glowing image pattern on the background.
OLED
LCD uses natural lighting like the sun instead of electrical backlighting. The lack of a backlight allows the screens to be much thinner as well as see-through. See-through LCD screens are a cheaper alternative to OLED's, however, their use is limited because of the natural light restriction.
OLEDs consist of an emissive and conductive layer. Electrical impulses travel through the conductive layer and produce light at the emissive layer. This is different from LCDs in that OLEDs produce their own light, which produces a markedly different visual effect with a see-through display. The narrow gap between the pixels of the screen as well as the clear cathodes within allow the screens to be transparent.
The panel itself is a thin layer of glass with liquid crystals, while a white illumination system is placed right behind it.
Each single pixel is composed by three “subpixels”, each one able to produce a different color: red, blue and green.
An OLED display works without a backlight because it emits visible light. Thus, it can display deep black levels and can be thinner and lighter than a liquid crystal display (LCD). In low ambient light conditions (such as a dark room), an OLED screen can achieve a higher contrast ratio than an LCD, regardless of whether the LCD uses cold cathode fluorescent lamps or an LED backlight.
LCD
LCD (liquid crystal display) is the technology used for displays in notebook and other smaller computers. Like light-emitting diode (LED) and gas-plasma technologies, LCDs allow displays to be much thinner than cathode ray tube (CRT) technology. LCDs consume much less power than LED and gas-display displays because they work on the principle of blocking light rather than emitting it.
Liquid crystals do not emit light directly, instead using a backlight or reflector to produce images in colour or monochrome. LCDs are available to display arbitrary images (as in a general-purpose computer display) or fixed images with low information content
- LCD’s consumes less amount of power compared to CRT and LED
- LCDs are of low cost
- Require additional light sources
- Speed is very low
- Used in the medical applications
Transparent screens are an emerging market that have several potential uses. Cell phones, tablets and other devices are starting to use this technology. It has an appealing appearance, but more importantly, it is also effective for augmented reality applications. Although Google glass never took off, think about all they hype around the idea of images overlaid over your field of view. I think that as the price goes down, we will be seeing a lot more of them.