An image being projected by the OLED panel-based small projector
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (IOF) of Germany exhibited an OLED-based small projector at SID Display Week 2009.
This projector project images using static optical systems such as lenses instead of DLP (digital light processing), LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon) or other reflective devices generally adopted for small projectors.
"Reflective technologies like DLP are unnecessary because OLED is self-luminous, said Fraunhofer’s Constanze Grossmann, developer of the projector.
The prototype projector combines five lenses and an 8 x 6mm green OLED panel that has a pixel count of 640 x 480 (VGA). The projector is 17mm in diameter, 24mm in length and has a volume of about 10cm3. At a distance of 30 to 50cm, the projector projects an image equivalent to a 6-inch screen.
However, it also has a challenge to overcome: the low luminance of projected images.
"OLEDs are still developing," Grossmann said. "Our projector will become usable if their luminance is raised to four to five times the current level by improving the efficiency."