Andreas Dahlin and grad student Kunli Xiong, of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, created the material while investigating combining conductive polymers with nanostructures. The tiny cells — plasmonic metasurfaces, you know — can be turned on and off with a tiny change in voltage, like an LCD subpixel. But like other reflective displays (and indeed regular paper), it doesn’t actually emit any light.
“It isn’t lit up like a standard display, but rather reflects the external light which illuminates it,” explained Dahlin in a news release. “Therefore it works very well where there is bright light, such as out in the sun, in contrast to standard LED displays that work best in darkness.”
By changing the makeup of the…plasmonic metasurface, the color it reflects can be adjusted, and so by putting them in formation — red, green, and blue — the display can produce the usual variety of in-between colors.
Previous color e-paper displays have generally had a sort of washed-out look, and it’s hard to say whether this technology would avoid that trap. Dahlin is aware of it, however, and said they’re working on achieving the deepest colors they can.
The refresh rate would only be a few times per second, but the resolution is potentially far greater than either LCD or existing e-paper.
