High-Luminance QD-LED Device With Digital and Dynamic Lighting Functions for Efficient Automotive Systems

This work reports the design of a 60-segment photoluminescence quantum dot light emitting device (QD-LED) for automotive lighting systems. The QD-LED device was fabricated using a quantum dot film (QDF), incorporating two kinds of quantum dots (QDs) synthesized to emit at 531 nm (green) and 624 nm (red). When the QDF is excited with blue wavelength at 465 nm, a white color output is obtained. Likewise, by using different color filters, all the automotive lighting functions (interior and exterior) can be achieved. In addition, an electronic control module, based on the state-of-the-art multichannel automotive lighting emitting diode (LED) drivers, was specifically designed to control each segment individually to enable the possibility of external digital communication with the vehicle surroundings. That is key to develop the autonomous vehicle by incorporating what is known as car-to-X communication, used to transmit information to other vehicles and road users through light. Furthermore, this work is remarkable due to the low power consumption of the QD-LED device designed, which implies a high electrical efficiency, something critical for the electrical vehicle development. Besides, figures of merit and performance indicators are measured, offering promising values to use this nanotechnology in the next future of the vehicle transportation lighting systems.