Comment by saltcured
6 hours ago
My fantasy display would be some kind of reflective-mode display that can passively show static images like e-ink, have partial updates like MIP LCD in wearables, response times like modern LCD and AMOLED, and "super-real" contrast/gain.
I.e. actually do wavelength conversion to not just reflect a narrow-pass filtered version of the ambient light, but convert that broad spectrum energy into the desired visuals, so it isn't always inherently dimmer than the environment. I can only imagine this being either:
1. some wild materials science stuff that manages interference
2. some wild materials science stuff that controls multi-photon fluorescence
3. some wild materials science stuff to fuse photoelectric and electroemissive functions in the same panel. i.e. not really passive but extremely low loss active system to double-convert the ambient light that can follow the power curve of available light
>> My fantasy display would be some kind of reflective-mode display that can passively show static images like e-ink, have partial updates like MIP LCD in wearables, response times like modern LCD and AMOLED, and "super-real" contrast/gain.
What about cost? :-) It is an important factor too outside of the fantasy world and can kill new display technologies. The latter often suffer from yield issues (dead pixels, etc.) during early phases of R&D which can make initial costs be still higher as compared to already matured technologies.
>> I.e. actually do wavelength conversion to not just reflect a narrow-pass filtered version of the ambient light, but convert that broad spectrum energy into the desired visuals
Reflecting filtered version of the ambient light, if done efficiently, brings the display to as bright as other natural/common objects around. So it should be good enough for most purposes, even in a somewhat darker ambient with eyes adjusted.
It would not however be attention-grabbing by being brighter than those surrounding objects. So many users, often used to seeing brighter emissive displays, still do not pick those as a preference.
>> I can only imagine this being either:
>> ...
Another way to make it look brighter is to reflect more light towards the users/eyes while capturing it from broader directions. This would compromise on viewing angle (unless more fantasy tech is brought in), but I think this in itself take the display to wow levels.
Well, the reflectivity of color MIP LCD is not very satisfactory. It is barely adequate, even for people like me who are fans. This is both because of the narrow-band RGB filtering and the inherent losses of the polarization-based switching method. Even the "white" state is discarding most polarizations of the ambient light, and then the darker colors are even blocking that.
My fantasy is having the reflectivity be at least as good as good white paper, and with deep contrast too.
It also needs to be brighter in practice than normal objects because, no matter what, it will have to overcome some glare from whatever protective glass and touch sensing layers there are over the actual display.
>> Well, the reflectivity of color MIP LCD is not very satisfactory. It is barely adequate, even for people like me who are fans. This is both because of the narrow-band RGB filtering and the inherent losses of the polarization-based switching method. Even the "white" state is discarding most polarizations of the ambient light, and then the darker colors are even blocking that.
Yes, that's right. A typical color LCD transmits only about 5-10% of the light for white because of all those factors.
>> My fantasy is having the reflectivity be at least as good as good white paper, and with deep contrast too.
That exactly was our benchmark for mirasol development. We used to measure best-in-class color prints for color gamut, brightness, contrast, etc.
mirasol did not use polarizers or RGB filters. An advanced architecture (that I was leading) also avoided RGB subpixels, something which very few alternative technologies can do [1].
>> It also needs to be brighter in practice than normal objects because, no matter what, it will have to overcome some glare from whatever protective glass and touch sensing layers there are over the actual display.
Yes.
Integrated touch-sensing helps significantly though.
There are also optical means that can nearly get rid of glare, if cost were not an issue. I have seen demo coatings that make the glass practically disappear -- we would repeatedly walk into it if it were used on a glass door.
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[1] Liquavista had Cyan-Magenta-Yellow subpixels vertically stacked. A new Eink architecture uses multiple colored pigments within the same cell but now needs sophisticated mechanisms to control them independently.