ping point for e-paper, but maintains
the technology hasn’t yet come of
age because consumers will eventually want video capabilities, bistable
pixels (giving displays the ability to
operate for long periods on very little
or no power), thin or flexible designs,
and, of course, vivid color. “No product or technology on the market is
even close to offering this, including
the FLEPia,” Heikenfeld says. “With
our technology, we are aiming to
provide the revolutionary increase in
brightness that is not possible using
the technologies currently available
as a product.”
Heikenfeld’s electrofluidic display
technology is based on a process called
pigment dispersion. “The pigments
look as good as they would on paper,”
he says. The technology, which Heikenfeld calls a “major step forward” in
color e-paper research, consists of an
insulator film situated between the
pigment dispersion and an electrode
film. When voltage is applied to the
electrode film, it creates an electrical
force that can stretch the pigment dispersion. “We don’t mix the pigments,”
he says. “We display them in different
areas, on demand.” Obtaining red,
for example, requires overlaying yellow and magenta. When the voltage
is removed, the pigment dispersion
bounces back to its favored geometry
of a small droplet or bead shape.
“We have a lot of approaches under
development that we have not published yet, so I can’t go into all the details,” Heikenfeld says.
Heikenfeld’s electrofluidic display
technology is one of almost a dozen
different technologies being developed to create low-power e-paper that
can render colors as brilliantly as traditional paper can. Judging by recent
developments in terms of display size
and power consumption in e-readers
coming to market, the future for e-paper technology appears bright. In 10 or
20 years, Heikenfeld says, consumers
might see large e-paper modules that
are as thin and as flexible as magazines
are today, with display brightness approaching that of conventional print.
In Heikenfeld’s imagined future,
these solar-powered devices will have
touch interfaces, communication capabilities, and be so energy efficient that
charging them will be an afterthought.
“You might click on an image in a story,
and it will provide video or animation,”
he says. “There is nothing fundamental
from an optics or electronics perspective that makes this impossible.”
For his part, Sheridon believes
e-paper eventually will make power-hungry desktop displays obsolete, and
will help make heavy, back-breaking
textbooks something school children
might learn about in a history lesson on their lightweight e-readers,
not lugged around with them in their
backpacks. But when it comes to betting whether all paper books will become a thing of the past, the inventor
of e-paper is cautious about predicting the obsolescence of the printed
page. Sheridon simply suggests that
in the future books might be printed
on paper.
“E-paper will continue to find important applications, such as in fabric,
large displays, and home and building
decoration, to mention a few,” says
Sheridon. “The surest way to predict
the future is to invent it. E-paper is rich
in potential.”
Further Reading
Feenstra, B. J.
Electrowetting Technology Aims To
Improve on the Performance of LCDs for
Mobile Applications, Information Display
22, 11, 2006, 10–13.
Green, A.M., Montbach, E., Miller, N., Davis, D.,
Khan, A., Schneider, T., Doance, J. W.
Energy Efficient Flexible Reflex Displays,
Proc. Int’l Display Research Conf., Society
for Information Display, 2008, 55–58.
Heikenfeld, J., Zhou, K., Kreit, E., Raj, B., Yang, S.,
Sun, B., Milarcik, A., Clapp, L., Schwartz, R.
Electrofluidic Displays Using Young-Laplace Transposition of Brilliant Pigment
Dispersions, Nature Photonics 3, 5, 2009,
292–296.
Lenssen, K.-M. H., Baesjou, P.J., Budzelaar,
F.P.M., van Delden, M.H. W.M., Roosendaal, S.J.,
Stofmeel, L. W.G., Verschueren, A.R.M., van
Glabbeek, J.J., Osenga, J. T.M., Schuurbiers, R.M.
Novel Concept for Full-Color Electronic
Paper, J. Society for Information Display 17,
4, 2009, 383–388.
Sheridon, N. K. and Berkovitz, M. A.
A Twisting Ball Display, Proc. Society for
Information Display 18, 3/4, 1977, 289–293.
based in Los angeles, Kirk L. Kroeker is a freelance
editor and writer specializing in science and technology.
© 2009 aCM 0001-0782/09/1100 $10.00
Belated
Apology
For Turing
British Prime Minister
gordon Brown apologized
for the British government’s
“horrifying” treatment 50
years ago of alan Turing,
the mathematical genius
and a founder of modern
computing, who was criminally
prosecuted and convicted of
“gross indecency” in 1952 after
admitting to a homosexual
experience. To avoid
imprisonment, he underwent
chemical castration. Two years
later Turing committed suicide
at the age of 41.
earlier this year, British
computer scientist and blogger
John graham-Cumming
launched an online petition
campaign urging the British
government to apologize. The
petition was supported by
scientist richard dawkins,
writer ian Mcewan, and
gay-rights activist Peter
Tatchell, and it received 31,612
signatures from British citizens
and residents before Brown
issued an apology.
graham-Cumming has also
written to Queen elizabeth ii,
asking that Turing be awarded
a posthumous knighthood.
in 1936, Turing wrote
his seminal paper, “on
Computable Numbers,” which
established the conceptual
and philosophical basis for
modern-day computers, and
consequently developed the
Turing Test, an important
measure of success in the
field of artificial intelligence.
during World War ii, Turing
developed the Bombe, an
electromechanical code-
breaking device that enabled
Britain to read secret messages
encoded by germany’s enigma
cipher machines, complex
typewriter-like devices that
generated a constantly
changing code for its military
communications.
aCM President dame
Wendy hall issued a statement
applauding Brown’s apology,
recognizing his computer
science and wartime
contributions, and noting that
“aCM looks forward to joining
with other organizations to
celebrate the centenary of
Turing’s birth in 2012.”