Samsung and Stanford have invented an OLED 10,000 PPI display

Pixel density is one of those elusive fields in which display manufacturers frequently speculate and participate in number wars. It’s difficult to tell if a display of 800 pixels per inch is much superior to a display of 400, especially when it comes to smartphones.

To be told, in places where the display is close to your eyes, pixel count does matter. The best example is the VR. Many VR glasses put the screens at a fraction of the inch away from your eyes and individual pixels are clearly observable, even with pixel densities above 500 PPI.

10,000 PPI display invented by Samsung and Stanford

A new kind of OLED screen with a pixel density of 10,000 PPI has been developed by Samsung researchers, along with colleagues from Stanford University. It uses a clever trick called light resonance – the concept is the same as sound resonance – for example when a guitar body resonates with the strings to produce sound.

In this case, between two very special materials, the light resonates at a nanoscale level to create multiple colours from an OLED source of white light. Since light waves of different wavelengths are very thin, researchers can effectively generate very tiny “pixels” of colour using this method.

Of course, the prototype made by Samsung and Stanford is currently in the laboratories and will therefore not go into commercial production anytime soon. However, if it happens, it could revolutionize the OLED display industry, leading to immersive VR tech, insane high pixel count TVs, and display of smartphones.