JPH0322634B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a display method that is simple, has high resolution, and causes less eye fatigue.

[Prior art]

Traditionally, display methods include CRT, liquid crystal, EL,
Methods such as plasma displays are used, but these display methods suffer from eye fatigue (CRT) and difficulty in increasing the display area due to limitations in drive methods (liquid crystal, EL,
There were drawbacks such as plasma display).

[Summary of the invention]

In order to eliminate these drawbacks, this invention
In a transparent insulating support material, display particles whose electrical and optical properties are different from those of other parts are dispersed in a rotatable state, and the ion flow is controlled on the surface of the transparent insulating support material to generate electrostatic charges. Display is performed by controlling the orientation of display particles by forming an image. The present invention will be explained in detail below with reference to the drawings.

[Embodiments of the invention]

1 and 2 show an embodiment of the present invention, in which 1 is a transparent insulating layer for surface protection, 2 is an elastomer layer, 3 is a conductive substrate, and 4 is an elastomer layer. 5 is a spherical display particle whose surface is made of an insulator, 6 is a dielectric liquid in the pores 4 of the elastomer, 7 is an ion current writing head, 8 is an electrostatic image charge, and 9 is a uniform Surface charge, 10 is a scorotron for uniform charging.

The display particles 5 are made of an insulator with only a hemisphere colored, and are sealed in a dielectric liquid 6 in the pores 4 of the elastomer in a state where they can freely rotate.

When the display particles 5 come into contact with the dielectric liquid 6, a surface potential difference is generated between the colored part and the non-colored part due to an ion double layer, so the direction thereof is determined by the direction of the surrounding electric field.

To operate this, first, as shown in FIG. 2, a uniform surface charge 9 is applied onto the transparent insulating layer 1 by a uniform charging scorotron 10. This makes the electric field in the elastomer uniform, so
The colored portions of the display particles 5 uniformly face upward.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1, the ion current writing head 7 is operated to apply an electrostatic image charge 8 of opposite polarity to the uniform surface charge 9 only to the area to be displayed. In the elastomer layer 2, the direction of the electric field is opposite to that in the other regions only in the region below the electrostatic image charge 8, so the display particles 5 in the elastomer layer 2 in the region below the electrostatic image charge 8 rotate and are not Turn the colored part upwards. If the elastomer layer 2 is viewed from the surface side of the transparent insulator layer 1 in this state, only the portion to which the electrostatic image charge 8 has been applied is the non-colored portion of the display particles 5, and the image is visually recognized. In order to display a different image again, a uniform surface charge 9 may be applied again as shown in FIG. 2, and then the electrostatic image writing process shown in FIG. 1 may be performed.

The display particles 5 may be, for example, glass spheres containing TiO ₂ as a main component, and a method such as vapor deposition may be used to color only the hemisphere. The size of the dielectric sphere is 30~
The thickness may be 100 μm, but display with higher resolution is possible if the thickness is 10 μm or less.

The elastomer layer 2 is formed, for example, by thoroughly mixing an elastomer material and dielectric display particles 5, forming the sheet into a sheet, and then soaking it in an organic solvent to increase the volume of the elastomer. By forming voids, that is, voids 4 in the elastomer, and leaching the organic solvent etc. into the voids 4 to fill them, the display particles 5 can freely rotate within the voids 4 in the elastomer. You can create it as you like.

In this example, an example was explained in which uniform charging was performed with negative charges and electrostatic image formation was performed with positive charges.
These can be of opposite polarity.
In addition, whether the colored portion of the display particles 5 faces in the direction of positive charge or the direction of negative charge is determined by which is larger in the contact potential difference between the colored portion and the non-colored portion with respect to the dielectric liquid 6. particle 5
This can be determined by appropriately selecting the material of the material and the material of the colorant. Of course, display particle 5
The contact potential difference may be created by painting each hemisphere separately with two different colorants.

In addition, in this embodiment, a type in which the display surface is viewed from the side of the transparent insulator layer 1 has been described, but if the conductive substrate 3 is made of a transparent material, a type in which the display surface is viewed from the side of the conductive substrate 3 or a double-sided type is described. It is also possible to make the display surface visible from above. moreover,
It is also possible to carry out the uniform charging process by not specifically providing the scorotron 10 for uniform charging, and by setting the ion current writing head 7 to the opposite polarity only during the uniform charging process.

Note that in the above embodiment, the hemispheres of the display particles 5 are color-coded, but this is not necessarily done for each hemisphere, but may be done at an appropriate ratio. Also,
By controlling the electrostatic image charge 8 and controlling the rotation angle of the display particles 5, it is possible to produce a desired number of halftones. Furthermore, although the elastomer layer 2 is used in the above embodiments, it may be made of any other transparent insulating support material. Further, the pores 4 of the elastomer are made to have a horizontally long oval cross section, and when the electrostatic image charge 8 is formed, heating or lateral compressive force is applied to the elastomer layer 2 so that the pores 4 of the elastomer have a circular cross section. If the display particles 5 are allowed to rotate in this way, and if they are cooled or the compressive force is removed after forming the electrostatic image charge 8, the pores 4 of the elastomer will again have a horizontally elongated ellipse in cross section. The display particles 5 can be locked.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, the present invention performs display by controlling the orientation of display particles in a transparent insulating support material of a display medium using electrostatic image charges formed on the surface of the display medium to change the color of the display particles. Because of this, it is possible to use a non-emissive/reflective display element, which enables display with less eye fatigue.In addition, ion flow control is particularly useful for controlling the orientation of display particles in a transparent insulating support material. Since the electrostatic image surface charge formed by the head is used, display can be performed without arranging display sphere control electric field forming electrodes on the surface of the display medium, so there is no need for a matrix drive circuit for the display electric field forming electrodes. In addition, the display resolution can be increased.

Therefore, the display method of the present invention can be applied to an integrated display device including an ion flow control head, a uniform charger, etc., and the display can be connected even if only the display medium is separated after image formation. In addition, since the display medium can be made thinner, after image formation, the display medium can be separated from the main body of the display device and can be freely held in hand and viewed as if it were printed on paper. It is possible to construct an easy-to-use display device that is not available in other countries.

Furthermore, since the display medium can be made thin, it can be made flexible, allowing it to be placed in the form of a belt within the image forming device, and after being separated from the display device main body, it can be bent to some extent. It has the advantage that it can also be viewed in person.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1 and 2 are cross-sectional views of an embodiment of the present invention, in which FIG. 1 shows an electrostatic image forming operation in progress;
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the uniform surface charge forming operation in progress. In the figure, 1 is a transparent insulator layer, 2 is an elastomer layer, 3 is a conductive substrate, 4 is a hole in the elastomer,
5 is a display sphere, 6 is a dielectric liquid, 7 is an ion current writing head, 8 is an electrostatic image charge, 9 is a uniform surface charge, 10
is a scorotron for uniform charging.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 A display in which display particles whose electrical and optical properties in one part are different from those in other parts are dispersed in a transparent insulating support material so that the orientation of the display particles changes depending on the surrounding electric field. Used as a medium, a controlled flow of corona ions is irradiated onto the surface of the display medium to form an electrostatic image, and the direction of the display particles is controlled by the electric field of this electrostatic image. A display method characterized by displaying an image.