New color filter could spell “grate” success for future displays
Marie Freebody, marie.freebody@photonics.com
Scientists are seeking to commercialize
a new type of color filter that they claim could be a step toward more efficient,
smaller and higher definition display screens. The filter can be integrated into
current LCD technologies to increase brightness and power efficiency and, what’s
more, the high resolution offered makes it ideal for use in compact wearable displays.
If you could peer inside any LCD screen, you would find that each
pixel is made up of several layers, each with a specific job to do. Among the layers
is a pair of polarizing filters that operate in conjunction with the liquid crystal
to either allow light through to create a picture, or to block it completely to
produce a black spot on the screen. And red, blue and green filters are needed to
render white light into the huge variety of colors that make up a picture.
But what if you could use just a single color filter that produces
different colors based on a physical effect rather than the traditional colorant-based
light filters? That’s precisely what Jay Guo, an associate professor in the
University of Michigan’s department of electrical engineering and computer
science, has done in his new design.
Shown is an optical microscopy image of seven color filters illuminated
by white microscope light. Images courtesy of Jay Guo.
The filter is composed of two metal gratings sandwiching a dielectric.
The device selectively scatters light to produce various colors. By simply changing
the space between the slits, different colors can be generated.
“We demonstrated color filtering elements capable of high
resolution and with efficiency greater than current colorant-based filters,”
Guo said. “Arbitrary colors can be produced simply by changing the period
of the nanograting so there is no need to build different color filters in separate
steps.”
Given the grating-based design of the filter, it can also function
as a polarizer simultaneously, eliminating the need of a separate polarizer sheet
in the LCD. The design formulated by the researchers is outlined in a
Nature Communications
paper published on Aug. 24, 2010, and was applied to construct what they believe
is the smallest color University of Michigan logo.
This optical microscopy image shows a 12 x 9-μm University of Michigan logo produced
with a new color filter process.
“The device uses a metal grating to selectively scatter
the incoming wave to couple to the arrays of plasmonic nanoresonators,” Guo
said. “A second metal grating is then used to scatter the trapped light to
the other side of the structure, thereby achieving transmission color filtering.
The light not resonantly coupled to the resonator is simply reflected. Incoming
light polarized along the grating direction is also reflected.”
Because this reflected light can also be recycled, the device
could save much of the light that otherwise would be wasted.
Guo and colleagues used one level of lithography patterning to
form all of the different colors and used no chemical solvent in the structure fabrication.
They found that red light emanates from slits set around 360 nm apart, green from
those about 270 nm apart and blue from those set approximately 225 nm apart.
To further improve the commercial appeal of their filter, the
scientists hope to show that the color filter elements can be fabricated in large
areas by using nano-imprint lithography. This, they say, would help to reduce production
costs. In addition, they are currently working on making reflective color filters
using a similar principle.
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