Regarding full color, there are two major developments in the field of MicroLED micro-display

As the demand for AR/VR equipment continues to heat up, Micro LED micro-display technology is accelerating from the laboratory to industrialization. On the one hand, chip sizes are approaching the sub-micron level, which places higher requirements on processes and materials; on the other hand, full-color paths (such as QD color conversion solutions, RGB vertical stacking, etc.) are also continuing to evolve. Recently, two developments have been reported in the European market: device and process breakthroughs on the enterprise side, and material innovation on the scientific research side, which are expected to accelerate the breakthrough of Micro LED micro-display full-color technology from different dimensions.

Enterprise side: Polar Light promotes dual-color Micro LED micro-display project

According to foreign media reports, Swedish Micro LED manufacturer Polar Light Technologies recently announced that it has teamed up with die bonding manufacturer Finetech to receive EU Eurostars project funding with a total amount of 1.1 million euros to develop a dual-color Micro LED microdisplay prototype. The project is called "2ndGenMicroLED", with a research and development cycle of 18 months. The focus is on achieving higher integration of micro-display devices through new processes.

In this project, Polar Light will develop dual-color Micro LEDs based on its unique "bottom-up (bottom-up) mask deposition process." Different from the traditional epitaxy + etching method, this technology route is expected to have advantages in nanoscale size control and material utilization. Finetech provides high-precision chip bonding technology support to achieve efficient integration of Micro LED chips.

It is understood that Polar Light began research and development of single-chip full-color technology in 2014, and finally found an ideal solution for pyramid-structured Micro LED based on InGaN. In May 2025, it demonstrated the Micro LED microdisplay prototype for the first time and continued to optimize the device size and luminous performance.

In early 2026, the company announced the successful preparation of InGaN LED devices with a size of 500nm and below, calling it "the smallest LED that has been demonstrated so far". It is expected to launch the first batch of commercial products in 2026, which may initially focus on single-color Micro LED micro-displays and gradually evolve to multi-color or even full-color solutions.

At the capital level, Polar Light continues to gain market recognition. For this year, it announced the completion of a new round of financing in January, raising more than 5 million euros, and its cumulative financing reached 13 million euros.

During in-depth exchanges at the end of last year, LEDinside learned that Polar Light plans to launch a single green display trial production line in the fourth quarter of 2026. The preparation plan is to use InGaN material to produce its proprietary 5μm etching-free pyramid structure Micro LED on a CMOS substrate.

At the same time, Polar Light continues to promote the research of single-chip full-color technology solutions and aims to launch full-color products in 2028. This is also consistent with TrendForce’s prediction that full-color LEDoS terminals are expected to enter the mature commercial stage in 2027-2028, and the market demand for AR glasses will also grow significantly.

Scientific research side: CEA-Leti breaks through the color conversion bottleneck of sub-micron Micro LED

In terms of materials and color realization paths, the French CEA-Leti Research Institute recently announced a key progress: the successful development of a perovskite color conversion layer (CCL) suitable for sub-micron Micro LED, providing a new solution for high-resolution micro-displays.

Currently, quantum dots (QDs) are widely used in Micro LED color conversion, but they suffer from the problem of low absorption rate. They usually require a thickness of 3–10μm to achieve effective conversion, which has become a major constraint for microdisplay products with ever-shrinking pixel sizes.

Against this background, the CEA-Leti team proposed to use inorganic halide perovskite materials (green is CsPbBr₃, red is CsPbI₂Br) to achieve uniform deposition on a 200mm wafer at room temperature through a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process. This material system has direct band gap, high absorption coefficient (~10⁵ cm⁻¹) and narrow half-width emission characteristics (green 17nm@516nm, red 31nm@640nm).

In terms of performance, the absorption coefficient of this perovskite CCL at a wavelength of 450nm can reach up to 6.4×10⁴ cm⁻¹, which is several to 20 times that of InP quantum dots. This means that only a film thickness of 500nm (green) or 360nm (red) can achieve approximately 90% blue light absorption, significantly reducing thickness requirements, thereby supporting Micro LED designs with pixel pitches of less than 1 micron.

In terms of color gamut performance, when combined with optical filters, this solution can theoretically cover about 90% of the Rec.2020 color gamut, which is close to high-end display standards. At the same time, the material composition is adjustable, providing space for further optimization of the luminescence wavelength.

In terms of stability, preliminary experiments show that the emission wavelength and half-maximum width of the CsPbBr₃ film remain stable within the excitation power range of 0.06 to 715 W/cm2, which is much higher than the brightness level required for AR/MR applications (about 1 W/cm2 corresponds to 100,000 nits). This shows its potential advantages in high-brightness application scenarios, but long-term stability still needs to be further verified.

Conclusion

Taken together, as AR/VR, wearable devices and vehicle-mounted displays continue to have higher requirements for high brightness, high PPI and low power consumption, Micro LED microdisplays have become an important competitive direction for the next generation of display technology. Against this background, from corporate financing, project cooperation to material innovation in scientific research institutions, the upstream and downstream of the industry chain are forming a joint force to promote breakthroughs in technical problems such as full color, and prepare for the transformation of technological achievements to meet the market demand to be released.

Judging from recent overseas market trends, Polar Light and CEA-Leti provide new ideas for the key path to full-color Micro LED in terms of manufacturing processes and materials. It is further conceivable that with the vigorous promotion of the upstream and downstream of the global industrial chain and terminal brands, as key technologies gradually mature and costs continue to be optimized, Micro LED micro displays will accelerate from prototype verification to large-scale application.