GOALI: Bi-Primary Electrokinetic Displays - Electronic Paper with Color Performance Approaching Printed Media

这项NSF GOALI提案的目标是通过辛辛那提大学、惠普（Corvallis）和EMD/默克研究实验室（波士顿，南安普顿）之间为期3年的合作，开发一种新型彩色电子纸。该研究的核心假设是，一种新的双原色系统可以使用电动像素和双粒子墨水分散体，提供变革性的电子纸反射率（~76%）和色域（40%）。学术-产业团队在初步数据的基础上制定了这一假设，并在之前合作发表了最新的电子纸技术。该研究的学术价值有三方面：(1)探索双色、双粒子油墨分散体的基本电泳行为，包括了解多分散性和泽塔电位对清洁粒子传输的影响；(2)常规RGBW滤色的2倍反射率和2倍色分光学工程像元；(3)通过有源矩阵寻址实现电气控制，并将改进的性能作为环境照明条件（漫射、定向等）的函数进行光学表征。更广泛的影响集中在本科生身上，他们将在辛辛那提大学接受研究合作培训，然后在GOALI合作伙伴公司获得行业合作经验。就社会效益而言，电子纸比典型的LCD节能10倍。此外，电子纸对个人的好处包括改进了电子阅读器的人体工程学（重量更轻，屏幕尺寸更大，不易破损的塑料显示屏，可卷曲/可折叠的外形因素），并使社会进一步融入电子出版和平板电脑学习的不断发展的领域。

The objective of this NSF GOALI proposal is to pursue a novel color e-Paper through a 3-year collaborative effort between the University of Cincinnati, Hewlett Packard (Corvallis), and EMD/Merck Research Labs (Boston, Southampton). The central hypothesis is that a new bi-primary color system can provide transformative e-paper reflectance (~76%) and color gamut (40%), using an electrokinetic pixel and dual-particle ink dispersions. The academic-industry team has formulated this hypothesis on the basis of preliminary data, and previous collaborative publishing on the state-of-the-art in e-Paper technology. The intellectual merit is three-fold: (1) exploring the fundamental electrophoretic behavior of dual-color, dual-particle ink dispersions, including understanding the effects of poly-dispersity and zeta-potentials for clean particle transport; (2) optically engineering pixels for 2X reflectance and 2X color-fraction of conventional RGBW color-filtering; (3) implementing electrical control by active-matrix addressing and optically characterizing the improved performance as a function of ambient lighting conditions (diffuse, directional, etc..). The broader impacts center on undergraduate students who will be trained as research co-ops at the University of Cincinnati, followed by industry co-op experience at GOALI partner companies. In terms of societal benefit, e-paper is 10X more energy efficient than a typical LCD. Furthermore, e-paper benefits to the individual include improved e-reader ergonomics (less weight, larger screen size, unbreakable plastic display, rollable/foldable form-factor), and enable further immersion of society in the growing sectors of e-publishing and tablet-based learning.