Traditional digital screens use a backlight to illuminate the text or images displayed upon them. While this is fine indoors, it can be difficult to see when in direct sunlight.
The reflective screens, developed by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, attempt to use the ambient light to mimic the way our eyes respond to natural paper.
“For reflective screens to compete with the energy-intensive digital screens that we use today, images and colours must be reproduced with the same high quality. That will be the real breakthrough. Our research now shows how the technology can be optimised, making it attractive for commercial use,” said researcher Marika Gugole.
The researchers had already previously succeeded in developing an ultra-thin, flexible material that reproduces all the colours an LED screen can display, while requiring only a tenth of the energy that a standard tablet consumes. However, in the earlier design the colours...