E-book readers make your eyes less strained – with support from a thin film with a nano pattern
An e-book reader puts an entire library of books in the palm of your hand, without the distractions of a phone or tablet. E-book readers are smaller than a paperback, last for weeks on a single charge, and give you an excellent reading experience.
E-books, e-paper, e-ink or whatever we call it, are since the last few years very common all over the world. There are several hundred million E-book titles sold every year, together with a lot of free samples – it´s a huge market for the reader. E-book readers will become an enormously large market due to digitization in schools, and through a large portion of digital educational material.
But, what makes an e-book reader different from a tablet and a mobile phone?
A lot of the e-books are consumed on a regular tablet or mobile phone, but many people prefer an e-book reader, even if most people already have a tablet or a mobile phone. Let’s have a look at the technology behind the e-book reader – which includes a thin (around 100µm) optical polymer film with a nano pattern on it. Preferably produced by a system from TC TECH, to get the right quality with 100 % replication.
According to us at TC TECH the main reason to use an e-book reader is that it’s less strained for the eyes due to the fact that the technology uses light from the side, which doesn’t disturb your eyes as much as the tablet. The tablet has light from behind, which strikes the retina directly. The e-book reader’s light source is called front light, but really should be named “side light at front”.
Together with the technology called e-ink this makes the e-reader visually closer to a paper print and more suitable for reading text on, than a tablet or mobile phone. The e-ink is an electronic ink, which only needs to be supplied by electric power for each change made to the screen. Activated e-ink will show the combined black spots as text on the white background which is visible without the light.
Light from the e-book reader is only needed in a dark environment, in daylight or in a lit room, the e-book reader is just like a piece of paper. Another benefit is low energy consumption, since the battery then can last for weeks or even longer.
E-ink was invented in the 90s at MIT Media Lab, the inventors established the company E Ink Corporation 1997 and the technology is still used by the leading e-book reader producers. The e-ink name is so established that it´s used commonly even for competing technology.
The invention of e-ink changed the way we read digitally
The e-ink invention consists of millions of capsules smaller than the size of a single human hair. The capsules consist of black and white bodies with a positive or negative charge. They are separated by a translucent liquid. To give the capsule order about which color should be on top – a negative or positive charge is sent to the respective capsule and together they form the text. To get a colored e-reader, colored bodies needed to be added as cyan, magenta, yellow and white and used with the same principle as black and white.
Black- and-white e-readers are still most popular, but the breakthrough for colored e-book readers might be around the corner. TC TECH makes it possible to increase the quality with the unique replication of nano patterns on thin film to speed up the breakthrough of colors in e-book readers.
Today the e-book readers’ picture and especially video quality is not as good as the tablets with LCD, Micro-LED or OLED, but what will happen in the future? With increased quality through TC TECH´s system, the e-book technology should be an alternative also for tablets and mobile phones, avoiding eye strain and with it´s lower energy consumption it should give an advantage that is hard to compete with.
Will it be possible to speed up the electrons or will there be other technologies which give the same advantages as e-ink developed instead?
The future will show – development never stops and displays are something that seems to interest the waist majority and fortunately for TC TECH, different display technologies seem to need smaller and more accurate patterns on a film as thin as possible to reduce thickness, cost and environmental impact. Front lights are essential for this to succeed, which TC TECH’s systems produce better than anyone else on the market!
How TC TECH’s patented technology enables excellent light reproduction in e-book readers
In an e-book reader, TC TECHs technology is used by the producer for the upper layer 1), which together with the transparent electrode layer 2) gives light to the display. Millions of lenses make the experience of an even light on the picture and smoothens the irregularity of the capsules, like pixels in an LCD display. The film is as thin as possible to at the same time work as expected. Today the thinnest films are around 100 µm in thickness with patterned lenses around 1µm or smaller. To efficiently and accurately produce that type of film the need of advanced technology such as systems from TC TECH is essential.
Contact for more information:
Alexander Luiga
CEO, TC TECH Sweden AB
alexander.luiga@tctech.se
Mobile: +46 70 6720704
