STTR Phase II: Photochemically Switched Chiral Materials for Chiral Nematic Displays

这项小型企业技术转让（STTR）第二期项目将为礼品卡、工资卡和收入支持卡等储值卡开发一种极低成本的光电显示器，首次可以向用户显示卡的价值和其他信息，每次使用都可以更新。基于光可切换手性材料的显示技术提供了薄、灵活、坚固的显示器，最重要的是，它们的成本很低，几乎不会增加卡片的成本。这种光电显示器可以提供高分辨率的图像，而不需要电子显示器所需的驱动和控制电子设备。光电显示器由显示写入器光学更新，其中图像，如数字、条形码和其他数字数据可以重复更新。该技术的广泛影响/商业潜力将通过设计、合成和研究新化合物来开发其独特的光学和电光效应，从而推进用于液晶材料的光化学手性化合物的基础和应用科学。由这些材料制成的薄而灵活的光电显示器类似于照相胶片，但其优点是图像可以被擦除、重写、隐藏并重新出现。光电显示薄膜具有电子显示器的特性，其中图像可以改变，但没有迫使电子显示器退出许多市场的驱动电子器件。光电显示器的另一个优点是，它可以通过已经为标签行业开发的连续卷对卷制造设备大规模生产。因此，光电显示器在许多应用领域开辟了新的显示市场，如储值卡、购买点标志、身份和安全标签、标牌和许多其他应用领域，在这些领域，由于现有电子显示器的成本、体积大和不灵活，以前不可能更新显示器。

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project will develop an extremely low cost photodisplay for stored value cards such as gift cards, payroll and income support cards where, for the first time, the value of the card and other information can be displayed to the user updateable with each use. The enabling display technology based on photo switchable chiral materials provides displays that are thin, flexible, rugged, and above all, of such low cost that they add little to the cost of a card. Such photodisplays can provide a high resolution image without the need and cost of drive and control electronics necessary for electronic displays. The photodisplays are optically updated by a display writer in which images such as, numerical, bar codes, and other digital data can be repeatedly updated. The broader impact/commercial potential from this technology will advance the basic and applied science of photochemical chiral compounds for use in liquid crystalline materials by designing, synthesizing and studying new compounds to exploit their unique optical and electro optical effects. Thin, flexible photodisplays developed from these materials are similar to a photographic film, but with the advantage that the image can be erased, rewritten, hidden from view and made to reappear. The photodisplay films have the properties of an electronic display in which the image can be changed but without the driving electronics that forces electronic displays out of many markets. A further advantage of the photodisplay is that it can be mass produced by continuous roll-to-roll manufacturing equipment of the type already developed for the label industry. The photodisplay therefore opens new display markets in many applications such as stored value cards, point of purchase signs, identity and security tags, signage and many other uses where updatable displays were not possible before because of cost, bulkiness and inflexibility of existing electronic displays.