Investigation of Pattern-Induced Brightness Non-uniformity in Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode Displays

We recently improved the brightness non-uniformity in active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) regarding non-uniform laser energy distribution by applying a "shot mixing" technique in sequential lateral solidification (SLS) method. Although the new SLS technique was employed, another brightness non-uniformity that appeared as oblique lines on AMOLED panels became a crucial issue. In this work, we attempted to investigate the origins of the non-uniformity. Our systematic analysis on the oblique lines revealed that the line type non-uniformity was attributed to both the SLS process and the thin-film transistor (TFT) fabrication processes. In particular, we found that such oblique patterns might be related to moiré patterns that appear when primary grain boundaries aligned in a repetitive pattern is placed over other repetitive TFT patterns such as metal lines. We adopted a method to diminish the moiré pattern type non-uniformity by applying top emission TFT structure.