Interplay of electrokinetic effects in nonpolar solvents for E-paper displays

Electrokinetic displays are increasingly popular due to important benefits such as low power consumption, wide viewing angle, and outdoor readability. Conventional E-paper displays mostly use electrophoresis of pigment particles as a driving mechanism. The drawback of this approach is that the electrophoretic mobility of the particles ultimately limits the switching speed. As a potential solution, we are developing a novel approach, where in addition to electrophoresis we also make use of electro-osmotic effects which drive long-range convection of the background liquid. We thus use the concerted action of electro-osmosis and electrophoresis to reduce the switching time of electronic paper displays.