LG. Philips LCD Company has recently applied for a patent on a flexible electrophoretic display technology that would use oil and water to produce images.  This comes from a need to produce a flexable display cheaper than flexible OLEDs.

The major problem with current OLED flexible technology is that it must be made at a higher temperature than the melting point of the plastic substrate, so it must first be produced on glass.  This process increases the cost and time and also decreases the number of defect-free displays.

The company claims that the new displays are designed by placing oil and water in tiny plastic cells connected to plastic electrodes.  According to the patent, the display is comprised of a reflective electrode formed on the first substrate, along with a transparent insulation layer having a predetermined color.  The second substrate consists of an electrode.  In between the two is an electrolytic layer formed of water and a nonelectrolytic layer formed of oil.

The patent also states that the image is displayed as a result of the movement of the electrolytic and nonelectrolytic layers. When an electric field is applied between the reflective electrode and the opposing electrode, the electrolytic layer moves to the lower side of the opposing electrode, and the nonelectrolytic layer moves to the lower side of the black matrix, so that an image may be displayed through the electrolytic layer.

LG. Philips was one of the first to develop the 14.1-inch e-paper that is able to produce 4,096 colors.  The company also bragged development of a 4-in flexible LCD with a resolution of 320x240 pixels.

LG. Philips did not release any information on manufacturing date or release.  It has only filed a patent for this technology at this juncture.  No images of the new technology are currently available.