Imagine watching a movie on your tablet and hearing sounds that come from specific parts of the screen—like a bird chirping in the top corner while footsteps echo from the bottom.
Thanks to a breakthrough from researchers at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) in South Korea, this kind of sound experience is now possible.
They’ve created the world’s first display that can produce different sounds from each individual pixel.
Led by Professor Su Seok Choi and Ph.D. candidate Inpyo Hong, the team developed a new kind of OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen that doesn’t just show pictures—it also creates sound, right from the display itself.
Their work was recently published in the journal Advanced Science and successfully demonstrated on a 13-inch screen, the size used in many tablets and laptops.
Traditionally, screens and sound systems are separate. While display technologies like OLEDs have brought amazing visuals with bright colors and high resolutions, most devices still rely on external speakers or soundbars for audio.
That adds bulk, especially in tight spaces like car interiors or slim devices like smartphones.
Some companies have tried to attach sound-producing parts to the back of displays or bend the screen around speakers. But those approaches often take up space, don’t allow precise control over where sound comes from, and can reduce the visual quality of the screen.
The team at POSTECH solved these problems by designing ultra-thin sound units—called piezoelectric exciters—that fit inside the screen’s frame.
These tiny devices turn electrical signals into sound vibrations and are as thin and compact as the OLED pixels themselves. Because of this, each pixel can now act like its own little speaker.
This means a single screen can play multiple sounds at the same time from different parts of the display, without the sounds overlapping or interfering with each other. The researchers found a way to completely eliminate what’s called “sound crosstalk,” which has always been a major problem in multi-speaker setups.
The potential uses for this technology are huge.
In a car, for example, the driver could hear GPS directions while the passenger listens to music—from the same screen. In virtual reality headsets or smartphones, sound could follow your movements to match what you see, making everything feel more real.
This new display technology not only keeps the slim and flexible benefits of OLEDs but also adds high-quality sound directly from the screen.
It opens the door to a new generation of devices where sound and vision work perfectly together—without needing bulky speakers or extra hardware.
