telescopic pixelA pixel that uses a pair of mirrors to block or transmit light could lead to displays that are faster, brighter, and more power efficient than liquid crystal displays (LCDs). Researchers at Microsoft Research who published their novel pixel design in Nature Photonics say that their design is also simpler and easier to fabricate, which should make it cheaper. Microsoft researchers believe that there is still room for improvement and they feel that their telescopic pixel innovation may lead the way to displays with much higher contrast ratios and brighter colors. According to the scientists, liquid crystals in LCDs cannot completely block light in the off state and are in many cases unusable in bright light. "LCDs transmit only 5-10% of the backlight, because of the polarizer, which blocks more than 50% of the light. Also, each color filter transmits only 30% of the remainder of the light, and there are some additional layers that decrease transmission even further," a paper published in Nature states. Telescopic pixels could solve this problem.
Each pixel is produced in two halves by standard photolithography and etch techniques. The secondary mirror is simply a lithographically patterned array of aluminum islands on glass, but making the primary mirror is a bit more complicated. First, an indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode is deposited on a glass substrate and coated with polyimide. The polyimide acts as a support and electrical insulator for the primary mirror. Aluminum is then sputtered onto the polyimide and photolithography is used to pattern 20 µm diameter holes, forming a two-dimensional array that will eventually line up with the secondary mirrors.
"The last step in the primary mirror fabrication is a dry etch, which preferentially removes polyimide from under the holes in the aluminum layer, resulting in sections of aluminum that are suspended in free space. These free-hanging sections of aluminum can be deformed by applying a voltage between the metal and the ITO layer. Once assembled, each pixel is 100 µm in diameter."
Considering the fact that there are already about 2 million pixels in today’s HD displays and future displays may go more than 8 million (quad HD) or even 12 million (4K) pixels, installing mirrors in every pixels sounds complicated and expensive. However, the scientists said that such a display could not only support a "high" image resolution, but can be made "from relatively cheap materials, and is compatible with liquid crystal display production processes."
There was no information when the technology could be put into production.
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