Last week, a panel
of experts at EmTech@MIT discussed technologies
that could hasten the arrival of color e-readers.
A prototype display developed by Opalux.
While the panelists
agreed that high-quality color displays could make portable reading devices more
attractive to advertisers and deliver a richer experience for readers, they
were less unanimous on the best way to deliver color screens.
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Two companies
are hoping to use reflective microstructures–the same kind seen in opals and on
butterflies’ wings–to develop color displays.
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Opalux uses a sponge-like polymer structure that mimics that of an opal. When a voltage is applied, the material expands, changing the
wavelength of light that it reflects.”So you can basically take one material and get all the colors you want,” says the company’s CEO, Andre
Arsenault.
Qualcomm is also making color displays with photonic microstructures. The
company has developed a MEMs structure that sits on glass and opens and closes
depending on the voltage applied, imitating the way gaps on the surface of a butterfly’s
wings allow certain wavelengths of light to reflect back.
Achieving high
quality shades of black, white and gray remains a challenge for such screens. And,
just like a stone sparkling at a certain angle of light, the color can sometimes
change when viewed from different angles.
Another
company, Kent Displays, has developed a technology that reflects different
colors using three colored layers of liquid crystals placed on top of glass or
plastic LCDs. The company has so far made thin, flexible displays that consume
little power, says CTO Asad Khan.
E-Ink, which
makes the displays for Amazon’s Kindle, uses micro-encapsulated charged
particles that move in response to an electric field. In 2010, the company
plans to put a color filter over the electronic paper to add color. However,
E-Ink’s product director Lawrence Schwartz says that the industry needs to make sure the devices are low cost and
low power and are usable in direct sunlight.
