Flat-screen televisions could be getting flatter – and greener – thanks to screens built with organic compounds that emit their own light, ending the need for a backlight to illuminate the screen.

Sony is planning to launch a TV incorporating the technology later in the year. The first model to go on sale will have an 11-inch screen, but the company said that larger versions will follow.

Small organic electroluminescent (OEL) screens have been used in music players, mobile phones and other similar devices, but Sony says that it will be the first company to use the technology in a television.

The screens make use of the self-luminescent properties of organic materials, which continue to emit light even when the device is switched off. Electrical currents are used to change the image on the screen, but no backlight is required. This makes them more energy-efficient that LCD or plasma screens.

They are also much thinner. The screen in Sony’s planned 11-inch OEL TV will be just 3mm thick.

The company's quick move into OEL TVs suggests that Sony has learnt from its bitter experience several years ago, when it was caught flat-footed by rivals that took the lead in the LCD TV market. Sony may now be hoping “to steal a march on rivals in terms of technology and make the new technology its own,” Yasuo Nakane, a Deutsche Securities analyst, said.

Other manufacturers are close behind. Toshiba’s president, Atsutoshi Nishida, said today that his company would begin selling large TVs using OEL screens by 2009, offering both high-definition and standard models based on the technology.

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