Running the color gamut
If LCD TVs start getting much more colorful — and energy-efficient — in the next few years, it will probably be thanks to MIT spinout QD Vision, a pioneer of quantum-dot television displays. Quantum dots are light-emitting semiconductor nanocrystals that can be tuned — by changing their size, nanometer by nanometer — to emit all colors across the visible spectrum. By tuning these dots to red and green, and using a blue backlight to energize them, QD Vision has developed an optical component that can boost the color gamut for LCD televisions by roughly 50 percent, and increase energy-efficiency by around 20 percent. Last June, Sony used QD Vision’s product, called Color IQ, in millions of its Bravia “Triluminos” televisions, marking the first-ever commercial quantum-dot display. In September, Chinese electronics manufacturer TCL began implementing Color IQ into certain models. These are currently only available in China, “because a lot of growth for the TV market...