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.
[...] 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. "We have not tested the resolution limit but it would definitely be high enough for any display, perhaps a few micrometers per pixel (10^4 dpi), which is much smaller than the human eye can resolve," Dahlin told TechCrunch in an email.
Also at Chalmers University.
Plasmonic Metasurfaces with Conjugated Polymers for Flexible Electronic Paper in Color (DOI: 10.1002/adma.201603358) (DX)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @04:18AM
Wasn't there some kind of research out there about using nanoscale structures to reflect various hues? This seems like the same thing, but the actual text makes it hard to tell whether that's precisely what they're doing.
Anyone have any clearer comment than crappy articles?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday October 17 2016, @04:23AM
http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news/newsid=40069.php [nanowerk.com]
I recall seeing the beetle one. Here's a bird feather one.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]