could improve the next generation of LCD displays for computers, televisions, e-readers and commercial interfaces.

For the University of Cincinnati team, the key challenge for power consumption in screens is how to reduce the energy used to illuminate the display so you can see it. They sidestepped the problem of traditional designs by using a highly reflective surface in the screen’s substrata that reflects ambient light rather than generating its own.

“What we’ve developed breaks down a significant barrier to bright electronic displays that don’t require a heavy battery to power them,” lead researcher Jason Heikenfeld said. He believes his team’s new display can generate brighter, high-color-saturated devices equal to that of a conventional LCD screen with an energy cost comparable to the E Ink displays on devices like Amazon’s Kindle.

“Conventional wisdom says you can’t have it all with electronic devices: speed, brightness and low-cost manufacturing,” Heikenfeld said. “That’s going to change with the introduction of this new discovery into the market.”

It’s not the first time people have made use of reflective layers to illuminate LCD screens. Startup Pixel Qi offers a multimode display which, in its low-power state, uses reflected light instead of battery-draining LED or fluorescent illumination, as most LCDs do.

And Qualcomm’s new Mirasol screen technology also offers full-color and video at low power, but Heikenfeld claims his team’s new display technology is at least three times brighter than Qualcomm’s.

The Vanderbilt University team’s claims are relatively more modest, but perhaps more easily incorporated into existing screen technology. The chemical lab led by Piotr Kaszynski thinks one path to a low-energy, quick-response display future is to change the chemical composition of our LCD screens.

“We have created liquid crystals with an unprecedented electric dipole, more than twice that of existing liquid crystals,” says Kaszynski. This means the dipoles will require a lower threshold voltage (using less power) and switch between light and dark states much faster, allowing for a quicker refresh rate.

The new liquid crystals have a “zwitterionic” structure: Their inorganic portions are negatively charged and organic portions are positively charged, but they carry a net electrical charge of zero. Zwitterions have long been thought a key to producing more-efficient liquid crystals, but the chemical procedure to produce them in the proper structure was only discovered in 2002.

Top image: Jason Heikenfeld, Angela Klocke/University of Cincinnati

See Also:

• Qualcomm's Mirasol Display Hopes to Create E-Reader Tablet Hybrids
• Qualcomm Aims to Bring Color, Video to E-Readers
• Better Than Retina: The Next Big Display Technology
• Why E-Books Are Stuck in a Black-and-White World
• Flexible Displays Closer to Reality, Thanks to U.S. Army
• Pixel Qi Promises Cheap, Readable, Low-Power Displays

Authors: Tim Carmody

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