Philips Research has claimed a color e-paper technology that allows for personalization of electronic devices and that the company believes has the potential to be used in the future for larger area “e-wallpapers” where users can adjust the color of a wall or smart window.

According to Philips, its technology allows different colors of ink to be built into one layer with each color controlled separately, allowing a layer to be transparent, the same color as any one of the inks, or a mixture of multiple colors.

Moreover, Philips said the saturation of each individual color in its e-paper can be controlled accurately, so that any shade can be produced. Philips built off of this to create what it has dubbed “e-skin,” described as a less complicated and less expensive technology that makes use of the ambient light for energy efficiency and for application in portable devices.

“The first applications using the technology could be e-skins for small devices such as MP3 players or cell phones. However, the technology is highly scalable,” said Kars-Michiel Lenssen, principal scientist at Philips Research, in a statement. “In the future it will be possible to use e-skins to bring new color and a new aura or ‘vibe’ to much larger equipment. Just as Philips’ Ambient Experience uses light and color to make hospital diagnostic rooms far more welcoming, a large e-skin could make the concept fit for the MRI or CT scanner itself, potentially putting patients more at ease.”
 
Philips believes that in ambience creation applications reflective e-skins complement the emissive ambience-creation technologies that use LEDs and OLEDs to create colorful light. “You could use LEDs or OLEDs when you want a theatrical look and e-skins when you want something more subtle and more natural-looking that uses less energy,” Lenssen said.

Philips’ e-skin technology is based on its previous work with e-paper. Because the particles in suspension carry a surface charge, their motion can be controlled using an electric field, known as electrophoresis. When a pixel is created with colored particles in a clear suspension, applying an electric field perpendicular to the surface makes the particles migrate to the top of the pixel, turning it dark and is the basis of monochrome e-paper used in e-book readers.
 
Philips said its e-skin technology features a gradient of grey levels from a highly transparent optical state to full black to allow future applications like smart windows.

To go from monochrome to polychrome, Philips used in-plane electrophoresis, which applies the field parallel to the surface opposed to perpendicular to the surface. This causes the colored particles to spread across the pixel, again turning it dark, Philips said. When the pixel is reset, the colored particles hide behind a mask, so the pixel is completely transparent.

Further, Philips said it has built a gate electrode into each pixel, which provides control over how many colored particles spread across the pixel and the saturation or shade of each color.

Philips said that while its focus is mainly in e-skin for ambient scene creation and product personalization, it is open to licensing its technology to other parties in other applications areas such as e-paper displays.

By: DocMemory
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