See-through display
They should be distinguished from image-combination systems which achieve visually similar effects by optically combining multiple images in the field of view.
Some display systems combine both absorptive and emissive devices to overcome the limitations inherent to either one.
The development of practical transparent displays accelerated rapidly around the end of first decade of the 21st century.
An early commercial transparent display was the Sony Ericsson Xperia Pureness released in 2009, although it did not succeed in the market due to the screen not being visible outside or in brightly lit rooms.
Samsung and Planar Systems previously made transparent OLED displays but discontinued them in 2016.
The LED technology is older and emitted a red color, OLED is newer than both using an organic substance.
Conventional LCDs have relatively low transmission efficiency due to the use of polarizers so that they tend to appear somewhat dim against natural light.
Small scale see-through LCDs have been commercially available for some time, but only recently have vendors begun to offer units with sizes comparable to LCD televisions and displays.
As of 2016, they were being produced by Samsung, LG, and MMT, with a number of vendors offering products based on OEM systems from these manufacturers.
The more flexible (literally and figuratively) OLEDs have generated more interest for this application, though as of July 2016 the only commercial manufacturer Samsung announced that the product would be discontinued.
These types of the screen have been notoriously difficult and expensive to produce in the past, but are now becoming more common as the method of manufacturing them is advancing.
[19] OLED transparent displays generate their own light, but can not show black; this can be solved by the addition of a special LCD layer.
[21] This approach improves the deficiencies observed with transparent LCDs and OLEDs, such as high cost, difficulty of scaling in size, and delicate maintenance.
[32] As of 2019, the MIT research was being commercialized by a startup company, Lux Labs, Inc.[33] See-through screens are an emerging market that has several potential uses.
A transparent LED display can be used by stage designers and event producers to realize creative holographic-like visual effects.
