That got me thinking: couldn't that be solved by adding a layer in fron akin to a phosphor screen which "buffers" the light a bit thus bridging the switching which should reduce flickering?
Not without losing brightness. White LEDs work that way and are less bright than an uncovered LED of the same power. Some of the light from the LED becomes waste heat instead of light when the phosphor absorbs it.
Also, not without losing response time. Part of the point of using LEDs for displays is that they can change brightness very quickly.
That’s a good point, I don’t remember much ghosting on those. I guess it might depend on the phosphor used. If it was tuned to only fluoresce for that imperceptible off time and no longer it would probably work.
I guess it’s a similar idea to quantum dots, but if those quantum dots fluoresced for just a bit longer.
Why is the pulse width so large? LEDs can toggle millions of times per second, not merely hundreds.
It is possible, by the way, to dim an LED without PWM the old-fashioned way: by varying the voltage of the power supplied to it (“DC dimming”). You can see this in devices that have an indicator LED that stays on for a few moments after power is disconnected, then fade out. What's happening there is a capacitor in the device is (briefly) powering the LED. As its charge depletes, the voltage drops, and the LED dims. However, controlling LED brightness this way is a great deal less accurate than PWM, creating color distortion at low brightness. See related Android Police article.
I wonder if the problem with DC dimming could be solved by adjusting the voltage supplied to each LED based on measurements made in the factory of its brightness at different voltages?