SKL Director Seminar - Wavelength scale structures for OLEDs, liquid crystals, and augmented reality displays - Prof. Kristiaan NEYTS
Optoelectronic devices and displays use advanced materials to emit, reflect, modulate, or refract light. Instead of looking at the material properties, the focus will be how the geometry plays an important role on the optical properties. The layer thickness, the material anisotropy or the periodicity of a structure can determine the emission, absorption or reflection characteristics. Optimizing the position of emitting molecules in the OLED stack can increase the external quantum efficiency. Periodic liquid crystal structures can generate diffraction with efficiency close to 100%. Chiral liquid crystal self-assembles into a periodic structure, with high reflectivity in the photonic band gap. This effect can be used to build laser cavities when a light emitting layer is placed between two mirrors. Chiral liquid crystal layers are also used to couple light in and out of waveguiding semi-transparent glasses for augmented reality displays.
Kristiaan Neyts is full professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Displays and Optoelectronics Technologies (SKLADT) since September 2023.
He received a degree in physics engineering in 1987, a doctoral degree in engineering in 1992 and became professor at Ghent University in the ELIS department in the faculty of Engineering and Architecture in 2000 after post-docs in Ghent and Berkeley. He is co-author of over 290 papers in the Web of Science core collection, and promotor or co-promotor of 30 completed PhDs. He founded the Liquid Crystals and Photonics Group (LCP) at UGent which has now 5 professors, 2 post-docs and 18 PhD students. He was also co-founder of the Center for Nano- and Bio-Photonics, a UGent sponsored Multi-disciplinary Research Network.