Mechanism and Improvement of Charged-Particles Transition in Microcup Electrophoretic Displays

Electrophoretic display (EPD) is one of the most prominent technologies used in electronic paper. EPDs have good paper-like readability in ambient sunlight, and their bistability characteristics allow them to use very little power. To understand the physical mechanism at work in EPDs in terms of optical phenomena and current responses, we investigated EPD charging behavior using a transient current, an intermediate-state current, a discharge current, and a current bump. After establishing the microcup EPD model, we developed recommendations for a shortened transition time. As our experiments show, the method can reduce the transition time by 20%.