Developments in Flexible Printed LCDs

His process is a roll-to-roll technology using azo-dye photo aligning layers. It does not therefore call for the brushing of glass to make grooves to lock the LCD molecules as seen in today's glass television screens. His process can employ any commercial LCD, including bistable ones to save energy and color versions. Such a display is optically rewriteable by low cost LED. However, although the display is only 500 nanometers thick, the optical rewriting mechanism has yet to be miniaturised.

He points out that this arrangement is inherently low cost, likely to give much better colors than electrophoretics, be more robust and operate without need of a transistor active matrix backplane or ITO or alternative transparent electrodes with all their problems of cost and of cracking when bent.

Murayama et al demonstrated a plastic color twisted nematic liquid crystal display (TN-LCD) using a photo-alignment (PA) method. In 2005. A continuous coating with azo dye solution on a plastic substrate and continuous PA treatment was employed. It is confirmed that LC alignment on a plastic substrate is possible under continuous processes.