Researchers from Japan (Chihaya Adachi of Kyushu University) and California have shown that OLED devices made with finely patterned structures are brighter and more efficient compared to regular OLEDs. The key finding in their research is that when the charge transport and recombination are confined to small nanoscale areas, the electroluminescent efficiency is increased because roll-off is suppressed.

The researchers say that such a structure (which are made using electron-beam lithography) may finally enable OLED devices to be bright enough and efficient enough to be used as laser sources. The researchers fabricated a small OLED device that supports charge density injection of 2.8 kA/cm² while maintaining 100 times higher luminescent efficiency than previously observed.

Razer first unveiled their open-source VR HMD Dev-Kit, the OSVR, in January 2015. The company has now released an update prototype, and one of the new features is a Full-HD OLED display, which replaces the LCD used in the first iteration. As expected, the OLED offers higher contrast - and lower latency. Razer aims to release the so called Hacker Developer Kit in June 2015, and it will cost $200.

It's great to see another VR developer opting for OLED displays. We've seen this happen with Oculus Rift and just last week Sony unveiled the latest Morpheus OLED prototype. According to Oculus, OLED is a must for VR applications due to the technology's ultra-fast response rate.

Finland's VTT Technical Research Centre developed a new technique to deposit patterned OLED lighting elements on flexible plastic films. This could enable a low-cost process technology to make flexible light emitting structured films - which they see used mostly in advertisement campaigns.

The new room-temperature deposition technology uses standard traditional gravure and screen printing - which means it may be possible to use in regular printing houses. The process makes OLED lighting stripes which are 0.2 mm thick and uses polymer based OLED emitters.

On March 2014, Sony unveiled the Morpheus VR HMD system, specifically designed for the PS4 console. The original prototype system shown by Sony used a 5" Full-HD (1920x1080) LCD panel, but reports said that Sony plans to replace the LCD with an OLED display in the production model.

Now Sony unveiled a newer prototype of the Morpheus VR headset, which indeed uses an OLED display - a 5.7" 1920x1080 one. This OLED has lower latency (under 18 ms) and a higher field of view. Sony also said that the headset will launch in the first half of 2016. This is not a huge surprise - OLED enables a much faster display which is crucial for VR applications. Oculus's VR system also uses an OLED panel.

Amazon.com now lists LG's new 55EG9600 curved 55" 4K OLED TV (2015 model). While LG did not yet officially launch this TV in the US, Amazon says it will ship in 3-6 weeks (i.e. during April) and will cost $5,499 (you can already place your order now).

LG EG9600 OLED TV

Amazon's product page actually says that this is a 65" model, but is obviously a mistake. The 65" EG9600 will cost $8,999.

According to reports from Korea, Samsung filed for some new trademarks in Korea on January 26: Super UHD OLED, Ultra Super OLED, Samsung Super Ultra OLED, Ultra OLED and Super UHD. Obviously these trademarks (except the last one, perhaps) will be used for UHD (4K) OLED TVs.

SDC repeatedly stated that it does not aim to mass produce OLED TVs in 2015. SDC did produce OLED TVs back in 2013, but the production yields were low and they could not keep up with the low prices of LG's OLED TVs. LGD's chosen technology (WRGB and Oxide-TFT, as opposed to SDC's direct-emission and LTPS) has better yields and is much easier to scale up.

Apple is set to officially launch their Watch wearable device next week. It's been pretty much confirmed that it uses a flexible OLED display produced exclusively by LG Display. Back in June 2014 it was reported that Apple is in talks with Samsung Display to become the second supplier of flexible OLED displays to their wearable devices.

A new report from Korea suggests that while LGD remains the sole supplier to the first-gen Apple Watch, Apple has signed a deal with SDC to become the second supplier to the next-generation wearable, which is expected in the second half of 2015 or early 2016.

Three new wearable devices with OLED displays were unveiled at the MWC tradeshow today. The most interesting one is Huawei's Watch - an Android Wear device that sports a 1.4" 400x400 (286 PPI) circular AMOLED display. It features a heart rate monitor and fitness tracking, six-axis motion sensor and a barometric sensor. Huawei's Watch will ship "in the middle of 2015".

Another interesting device is HTC's Grip - a fitness tracker that was developed together with Under Armour. The wearable device sports a curved monochrome (white) PMOLED display, which seems to be Futaba's 1.4" 128x16 film OLED (similar to the one used in Garmin's Vivosmart). The Grip includes the usual range of sensors in addition to an internal GPS chip.The Grip will ship in the US in the spring for $199.

Samsung officially announces their next flagship phone, the Galaxy S6 and its curved-display variant the Galaxy S6 Edge. Following the disappointing sales of the Galaxy S5, it seems that Samsung focused on the phone look and feel - and reportedly the GS6 looks and feels great, especially the S6 Edge with its curved flexible OLED display.

The two phones sport the same features - an aluminum body covered with Gorilla Glass 4 on both sides, an octa-core CPU (quad-2.1 Ghz and quad-1.5 Ghz), 3GB of RAM, 16 MP camera, LTE Cat6, Android 5.0 and wireless charging support. Both display have the same specification - 5.1" QHD (2560x1440, 577ppi) Super AMOLED. Samsung also announced Gear VR edition that supports the two new phones.

In August 2013 Visionox started constructing their Gen-5.5 AMOLED production line, and according to the company, they are set to start mass producing AMOLED panels in Q2 2015 (i.e. by June 2015). This line will produce 4,000 substrates each month at first and once yields stabilize it will reach its full capacity of 15,000 monthly substrates.

When this happens, Visionox will become the world's second largest AMOLED producer after SDC (which currently produces 140,000 monthly Gen-5.5 substrates). China's EverDisplay also has a monthly capacity of 15,000 substrates, but its production line is smaller (Gen-4.5). The fourth AMOLED producer, Taiwan's AU Optronics, also has a Gen-4.5 line but production volume is unclear at the moment.