A new retina e-paper design could push e-ink far past today’s clarity limits, with Swedish researchers saying their pixel tech reaches over 25,000 PPI, well beyond the 300 to 500 PPI on most phones and the 300 PPI typical of black and white e-ink.
Researchers from Uppsala University and the University of Gothenburg have apparently developed a new type of e-paper pixel that can be as small as 560 nanometers according to TechSpot.
The team injects “tungsten trioxide nanodisks through a reversible insulator-to-metal transition on electrical conduction” according to the report, which creates the super small pixels that could enable pixel densities in the thousands of pixels per square.
This basically means that at that density, a panel the size of a contract lens could exceed 4K, and wearables and smart glasses could show crisp text and graphics without chewing through the battery.
If that’s applied to e-readers, retina e-paper would offer an incredible upgrade in terms of contrast and visibility in sunlight compared to LCD and LED screens, all while consuming much less energy.
There are some drawbacks, though. This proof-of-concept tech isn’t able to deliver colour in the same way as LED or LCD screens and it’s not able to exceed a 25Hz refresh rate.
Regardless this is impressive and might offer serious upgrades to some of the best e-readers in the future.
