In case you didn’t know, it’s fire season in Southern California, a time when hot September winds can dry the back hill underbrush that often erupts into an uncontrollable conflagration from the tiniest spark. Like that dry hillside underbrush, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been basking in the hot sun of laboratory research for years now waiting for that one spark of inspiration that can set the industry on fire.

The recent new cycle began in August when Philip Wong’s Blog at Asia CNET did a story on Samsung getting into the CNT business. More recently, ET News Korea (Korean only site) expanded on Wong story noting that the mammoth Korean TV maker will focus on "smart backlight units" (SBUs) for LCDs rather than use the tiny CNT molecules to replace Liquid Crystal material in displays. According to the coverage, these new-generation CNT-lit LCD TVs might be launched "…as early as 2011."

What is interesting about this latest news is that it includes more details on manufacturing, ramp up and delivery quantities. This isn’t just smoke anymore, it is beginning to look like fire. Here are some of the details, (translated on-line directly from the original ET News Korea article by Google) so these details are still open to verification.

• Current prototypes have been completed
• Core components and affiliated companies are lined up for full production
• Samsung SDI has converted a PDP line to manufacture the CNT FED BLUs
• Display sizes will target 46-inch
• Current production levels are at 100K units (per month?)
• That number is set to double
• CNT FED production can use up to 60% of the PDP process (?)

To get at the process, Wong’s paper also cites research references including one from the Vacuum Nanoelectronics Conference in Japan, 2009, and another from Nanotechnology’s IOP Science in 2008. Here’s the more recent (Japan) paper’s abstract: "The carbon nanotube (CNT) field emitter based backlight unit (BLU) is highlighted as a device to improve video images for future television (TV) of liquid crystal display (LCD), especially in terms of contrast ratio and moving picture response time (MPRT)."

We also found an explanation on Jin Kim’s DisplayBlog.com site from May 27, 2008. Here is a relevant excerpt: "Field emission technology is a variation on how CRTs and plasmas work by using electrons to excite phosphors on a screen. In Samsung’s example, the control is fine tuned by the use of carbon nanotubes and a unique structure. The carbon nanotubes are used as emissive tips. Nanotubes are deposited on a flat surface and is treated with an elastomer. The elastomer allows the exposed nanotubes to stand up, which then can be used as emissive tips. A TFT-like grid is layered above the nanotubes to control the movement of electrons to excite the red, green and blue phosphors."

After years of research, CNTs in the display industry may finally be coming into their own. One more thing, this gives Samsung yet another hot new backlight technology to tout as the latest thing in TV. Remember LED-TVs?–a term that put the industry on its ear, confusing consumers and sales folks alike, but creating a windfall for Samsung. Could Samsung be looking to re-invent the LCD once again this time using CNT technology? Are we going to see the CNT-TV from Samsung?