Editor’s Note: The quantum dot industry is growing rapidly, and Nanosys is a leader in the industry, recently announcing that its quantum dots reached a significant milestone, with its quantum dots appearing in its 1,000th unique quantum dot display product. Jeff Yurek, VP of marketing for Nanosys, discusses the drivers for this growth as well as some of the recent innovations at Nanosys.

Printed Electronics Now: How long has Nanosys been in the quantum dot field?

Jeff Yurek: Nanosys has been developing Quantum Dots since our founding back in 2001. There’s also a connection that leads all the way back to the discovery of quantum dots by Dr. Lou Brus at Bell Labs in 1982. Two of Dr. Brus’ grad students, Dr. Moungi Bawendi and Dr. Paul Alivisatos, were among Nanosys’ original scientific co-founders.

Between them, Bawendi and Alivisatos made many of the earliest discoveries related to quantum dots that ultimately led to Nanosys’ founding and the commercialization of Quantum Dots. In the early days, Nanosys explored the use of Quantum Dots in several different fields, including solar, biotech and lighting applications.


Printed Electronics Now: How has the market for quantum dots been growing in the last few years?

Jeff Yurek: We’re seeing a couple of important trends play out in the display market that are driving growth for quantum dots.

First, I’d point to the amazing combination of QD-MiniLED LCD and QD-OLED displays in the premium TV market. QD-OLED delivers the absolute best image quality, while QD-MiniLED offers incredible value in huge screen sizes. These two technologies will represent over half of the premium TV segment in 2023 and we expect their combined share to grow substantially over the next several years.

Second, we see continued growth in the mainstream segment. TVs are getting larger and less expensive every year and competition is fierce in this part of the market. In 2023 you will probably be able to buy 75” for under $500! Quantum Dot technology offers set makers a noticeable differentiator with great color and brightness at a low cost. We’re seeing a lot of uptake in the important sub $500 market where most of the volume is and where quantum dots really help your product stand out from the crowd by delivering a better experience.


Printed Electronics Now: I saw that Nanosys recently passed the 1,000 unique products mark – congratulations! What was the first commercialized product that Nanosys quantum dots were used for?

Jeff Yurek: The first commercial product with Nanosys’ Quantum Dots inside was the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 tablet. That product was released in the fall of 2013, so this year is the tenth anniversary of Quantum Dots in displays!

Since then, quantum dots have been used in displays of almost every type. In 2023 you can find quantum dots in everything from a 1” VR headset to a 110” TV and everything in between.


Printed Electronics Now: What have been few of the recent products, and how much have these products progressed over the years?

Jeff Yurek: The technology everyone is talking about is QD-OLED. This technology is making rapid progress. It first launched last year, and the peak brightness of this year’s model has increased 100%. That kind of increase in one year is pretty unheard of, even for new technology, so I’m excited to see where this goes over the next couple of years. There are a lot more exciting developments in the pipeline for QD-OLED, both in terms of improved quantum dots and better OLED materials.

Outside of TVs, we’re starting to see significant use of quantum dots in VR (my favorite new QD display this year was Meta’s Oculus Quest Pro), gaming monitors, automotive displays and even airplane seatback displays.


Printed Electronics Now: What is your outlook for quantum dots for the next five to 10 years?

Jeff Yurek: I think we’ll see quantum dot technology continue to run away with the premium TV segment, with QD-OLED and QD-MiniLED driving that growth. Mainstream TV will continue to adopt QD technology as well. We’re already seeing sub $500 TVs with quantum dots inside. QD technology will continue to waterfall down to the truly mainstream, entry-level TVs in this timeframe.

In the next five to 10 years, we’ll also see the first electroluminescent quantum dot displays commercialized. This technology is closer than I think most people realize. We demonstrated a full 6.24” emissive quantum dot display at CES this year.

The last thing I’d point to is the non-display applications like solar windows and agriculture. These applications are nascent right now, but we’ll see a lot more activity over the next decade!