Differentiate LCD & LED Monitors | Basics of ICT (5403)

 Basics of ICT (5403)

Question no 2.   Differentiate the following: –

(c) LCD & LED Monitors

LED

In the simplest terms, a light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when an electric current is passed through it. Light is produced when the particles that carry the current (known as electrons and holes) combine together within the semiconductor material.

Since light is generated within the solid semiconductor material, LEDs are described as solid-state devices. The term solid-state lighting, which also encompasses organic LEDs (OLEDs), distinguishes this lighting technology from other sources that use heated filaments (incandescent and tungsten halogen lamps) or gas discharge (fluorescent lamps).

Different colors

Inside the semiconductor material of the LED, the electrons and holes are contained within energy bands. The separation of the bands (i.e. the bandgap) determines the energy of the photons (light particles) that are emitted by the LED.

The photon energy determines the wavelength of the emitted light, and hence its color. Different semiconductor materials with different bandgaps produce different colors of light. The precise wavelength (color) can be tuned by altering the composition of the light-emitting, or active, region.

LEDs are comprised of compound semiconductor materials, which are made up of elements from group III and group V of the periodic table (these are known as III-V materials). Examples of III-V materials commonly used to make LEDs are gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium phosphide (GaP).

Until the mid-90s LEDs had a limited range of colors, and in particular commercial blue and white LEDs did not exist. The development of LEDs based on the gallium nitride (GaN) material system completed the palette of colors and opened up many new applications.

Main LED materials

The main semiconductor materials used to manufacture LEDs are:

Indium gallium nitride (InGaN): blue, green and ultraviolet high-brightness LEDs

Aluminum gallium indium phosphide (AlGaInP): yellow, orange and red high-brightness LEDs

Aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs): red and infrared LEDs

Gallium phosphide (GaP): yellow and green LEDs.

LCD

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) is a type of flat panel display which uses liquid crystals in its primary form of operation. LEDs have a large and varying set of use cases for consumers and businesses, as they can be commonly found in smartphones, televisions, computer monitors and instrument panels.

 

LCDs were a big leap in terms of the technology they replaced, which include light-emitting diode (LED) and gas-plasma displays. LCDs allowed 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. Where an LED emits light, the liquid crystals in an LCD produces an image using a backlight.

 

As LCDs have replaced older display technologies, LCDs have begun being replaced by new display technologies such as OLEDs.

OLEDs use a single glass or plastic panels, compared to LCDs which use two. Because an OLED does not need a backlight like an LCD, OLED devices such as televisions are typically much thinner, and have much deeper blacks, as each pixel in an OLED display is individually lit. If the display is mostly black in an LCD screen, but only a small portion needs to be lit, the whole back panel is still lit, leading to light leakage on the front of the display. An OLED screen avoids this, along with having better contrast and viewing angles and less power consumption. With a plastic panel, an OLED display can be bent and folded over itself and still operate. This can be seen in smartphones, such as the controversial Galaxy Fold; or in the iPhone X, which will bend the bottom of the display over itself so the display’s ribbon cable can reach in towards the phone, eliminating the need for a bottom bezel.

However, OLED displays tend to be more expensive and can suffer from burn-in, as plasma-based displays do.