Sun Chemical Develops Pigmented Fluid for First-Ever High-Quality Color Reproduction on Electronic Display Technology

Sun Chemical and the Novel Device Laboratory of the University of Cincinnati developed exciting new Electrofluidic Display (EFD) technology that for the first time ever electrically switches the display appearance in a manner that provides high quality color reproduction rivaling that of conventional printed media.

EFD technology enables the production of reflective displays exhibiting vastly superior color gamut compared with existing electrowetting, electrochromic and electrophoretic displays, while providing improved contrast ratio, lower power consumption and competitive cost.

A new company called Gamma Dynamics LLC was created as a result of this collaboration to commercialize EFD technology. Sun Chemical will be the sole supplier of the new pigmented fluids that are used in the EFD devices. Polymer Vision Inc., the world leader in flexible and rollable display technology, will contribute critical know how to developing the first commercial products.

The new EFD technology will be sold to manufacturers of electronic smart windows, components for e-readers, e-books, cell phones, car dash boards, scoreboards, large point of purchase displays and other diverse display applications.

“Affordable electronic display technology that replicates the appearance of high quality commercial print has long been an objective of e-display researchers, however until our collaboration developed electrofluidic display technology, no one had achieved this level of color and contrast,” said Russ Schwartz, vice president of colors technology, Sun Chemical Performance Pigments. “Sun Chemical utilized its knowledge and its expertise in high quality pigment dispersion technology to develop the fluids used in the electrofluidic displays and is proud to have played a pivotal role in the development of this groundbreaking technology.”

Polymer Vision’s flexible and rollable display backplane technology combined with the robust colors from Sun Chemical’s pigmented fluids and the University of Cincinnati’s innovative EFD pixel architecture will enable the development and manufacture of a variety of end-use products, including smart windows, point of purchase displays, and eventually ultra thin devices with high quality video capability.

The collaboration’s work is featured in an article called “Electrofluidic displays using Young-Laplace transposition of brilliant pigment dispersions,” in the May 1 issue of Nature Photonics. Professor Jason Heikenfeld from the University of Cincinnati and one of the founding members of Gamma Dynamics, is the lead author of the article.