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]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Monday October 17 2016, @05:02AM
Jeez, in '04 or so I worked for a company that thought E-Paper was "right around the corner", and built systems assuming it would be available tomorrow. Company had a boatload of issues, I got fired for not agreeing to a stupid schedule, in my exit interview I pretty much vented about the manager, a co-worker, the schedules, and everything else wrong. My firing got turned into a layoff (yay unemployment), and everything I said in that exit interview proved to be true. The engineering manager went on maternity leave and was asked to not come back, the head sales dude got fired, and the guy the engineering manager trusted (he said what she wanted to hear, most incompetent boob I've ever worked with) got fired 2 months after I did. Except he got fired, not laid off.
Indyme in San Diego, CA, I'm looking at you. How you are still in business boggles my mind.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @06:00AM
Amazon Kindle does most of what makes e-paper useful. It just doesn't bend or have color.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Monday October 17 2016, @12:05PM
What no one seems to do is make an epaper tablet that runs a regular GNU/Linux system. Yes, some of the older Kobo systems could be booted from a user-provided SD card, but there was no documentation for the proprietary device drivers, so it wasn't very useful. Are there any others?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @09:36PM
Need to look around a bit more, there are ones running android. I realize its not quite Linux as you are looking for, but its close. Since i'm such a nice guy, here is one -> https://www.amazon.com/Android-Screen-Reader-Upgraded-Version/dp/B00TKF6LNQ [amazon.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @09:38PM
Shoot, forgot to add: E-Paper is NOT the same as e-ink. Do some more research before you make yourself look stupid.