Studies by Dr. Andrew Steckl of at the Cincinnati University Nanolab, states that electrowetting works equally well with a paper as well as a glass substrate. Electrowetting is that method where current e-ink shows work. Even if it is paper, the screens cannot be removed, because the costly part of the e-ink screen is not everything but the substrate. This does not mean that the display can be folded or flexible. It all depends on how the mechanism, fluids and circuits manage the deformation applied, something out of the topic.
Electronic paper/e-paper/electronic ink display, all sum up to the same thing. It is a display created to ape the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. It is different from ordinary displays which take the assistance from backlights to shine on its pixels; whereas e-paper reflects light like ordinary paper. It can contain text and images indefinitely without pulling electricity, at the same time letting the image to be changed later.
The e-paper was first developed in 1970s by Nick Sheridon at the Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center. Later, in the 1990s, e-paper of a slightly different kind came into existence by Joseph Jacobson, who later founded the E-Ink Corporation. Electro-wetting display [EWD] is based on controlling the shape of a confined water/oil interface by an applied voltage. Displays based on EW have several attractive features.
The changing of white and colored reflection is quick enough to exhibit video content. It is a low-power low-voltage technology where the displays can be made flat or thin depending on the effects. Also, this technology shows a special path directed to high brightness and full colour displays resulting in displays of a much superior quality[ almost 4 times brighter] when compared to LCDs.
Examples of commercial electro wetting displays are inclusive of Liquavista [17] |TR| [18] PVI and ADT[19] [20]. But it does have its own drawbacks too. The e-paper technologies have a very low refresh rate when compared to other low-power display technologies as LCD. This does not allow implementation of highly sophisticated interactive applications [using fast moving menus, mouse pointer or scrolling], which can be done easily on handheld comps.
Let’s say it like this, a document cannot be easily zoomed without either extreme zooming or very slow zoom. Another point which can go down as a disadvantage would be that an imprint of an image may be seen even after refreshing parts of the screen. These imprints are commonly called ghost images and the effect is known as ghosting.
[ via CrunchGear ]