photoxels
Dr. Han You and Professor Andrew Steckl of the Nanoelectronics Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati have experimentally demonstrated a new electronic display that contains colored oil droplets stacked on top of each other. The three layers of oil dyed red, green, and blue are separated by two intervening layers of water, and sandwiched between electrodes. Divide these layers of colored oil into aligned rows and you have separate pixels capable of displaying colors.
When a low voltage is applied to the water layer next to one of the colored oil layers, the oil moves to one side and is replaced by water [electrowetting (EW) technique], allowing the colored oil below to become visible. A white background is created by applying a voltage to all three layers of the stack.
These EW reflective displays have extreme thinness, low power consumption, and wide viewing angle. Combined with its high resolution, the EW vertical stack structure offers the potential for a variety of future e-paper and flat panel applications, such as touch commands and animation.
[PhysOrg]
