Electrochromic systems and displays

Displays - RISE ECD

With printing technology and environmentally sound materials we can create displays which are thin, flexible and require little energy. The RISE ECD ("Acreo Display") is a simple reflective display manufactured with printing technology and organic materials. It may be the first fully functional electrochromic display in the world, possible to mass produce at a reasonable cost.

Our expertise encompasses printing, display stack build-up, curing, contacting, driving and fundamental chemistry such as electrolytes and inks to create miniaturised systems and displays.

What's unique with electrochromic displays?

• Screen printed
• Flexible
• Thin
• Environment friendly
• Mass-producible roll-to-roll with conventional high-speed printing processes
• Super low energy consumption (as low as 1.2V)
• Robust
• Reflective
• Bi-stabile (retains colour without being connected)
• Free form

The RISE ECD is ideal as a "Visual Alert", a simple indicator, but may also be used as more sophisticated displays such as 7-segment displays driven by active/passive matrixes, much like an LCD. Since it's all printed, it may be take on many shapes, and further integrated in smart packaging, labels or even mould-in in smart cards or automotive interiors.

Application areas- examples

• Smart labels (logitstics, temperature monitoring, anti-counterfeit etc)
• Cheap displays with short lifetime
• Medtech: pregnancy tests, blood tests, fast indicators in Point-of-Care applications from blood, saliva etc
• Counter and visual alerts (did I take my pill? How many units are left? Is the device on/off?)
• Smart cards: OneTimePassword
• Substituting LCD
• Substituting e-ink and other "Paper displays"

Electrochromism opens a realm of opportunities in fields such as dimmable glass, colourshifting surfaces (camouflage, design) and textiles and paper. Get in touch if you want to know more!

We develop our own materials and material combinations such as inks and electrolytes, with focus on environmentally sound organic materials and realistic, conventional, production processes. The electrolyte inks, for example E001 and E003, are protected by patents, but please get in touch with us in case you are interested in evaluating or licensing this type of ink formulations. 

Research in conducting polymers was rewarded with the Nobel Prize in year 2000 and the area keeps growing into new exiting fields such as interfaces with the human body, organic electrochemical transistors (OECT) and other printed components for future electronics and iontronics.

This research field is fast growing, as an example we are currently working with novel shapes and colour systems. Do see more facts and video clips here: RISE ECD..

In recent years, we have published a number of scientific articles on the topic of printed electrochromic displays, they are all available via Open Access:

Monolithic integration of OECT-based circuits and electrochromic displays:

• All-printed large-scale integrated circuits based on organic electrochemical transistors, Nature Communications, 10, 5053, 2019.
• Monolithic integration of display driver circuits and displays manufactured by screen printing, Flexible and Printed Electronics, 5, 024001, 2020.
• Flexible Active Matrix Addressed Displays Manufactured by Screen Printing, Advanced Engineering Materials, 23, 2000771, 2021.

Electrochromic displays screen printed on various substrates:

• Batteryless Electronic System Printed on Glass Substrate, Electronic Materials, 2, 527-535, 2021.
• Fully Screen Printed Stretchable Electrochromic Displays, Flexible and Printed Electronics, 6, 045014, 2021.
• Electrochromic Displays Screen Printed on Transparent Nanocellulose-based Substrates, Advanced Photonics Research, 4, 2200012, 2022.
• Screen printed reflective electrochromic displays for paper and other opaque substrates, ACS Applied Optical Materials, 1, 578-586, 2023.
• All-printed electrochromic stickers, 308, 2300044, 2023. 

Electrochromic displays manufactured by the combination of vapor phase polymerization and screen printing: 

• Electrochromic displays manufactured by a combination of vapor phase polymerization and screen printing, Advanced Materials Technologies, 7, 2200054, 2022.
• All-printed multilayers and blends of poly(dioxythiophene) derivatives patterned into flexible electrochromic displays, Macromolecular Materials and Engineering, 308, 2200453, 2022.
• Paper electronics utilizing screen printing and vapor phase polymerization, Advanced Sustainable Systems, 7, 2300058, 2023.

Printing/integration of electrochromic displays for see-through displays and smart multifunctional windows:

• Integration of screen printed piezoelectric sensors for force impact sensing in smart multifunctional glass applications, Advanced Engineering Materials, 24, 2200399, 2022.
• Reflective and complementary transmissive all-printed electrochromic displays based on Prussian blue, Advanced Engineering Materials, 25, 2201299, 2022.

An article in Scientific Reports (July 2022) advanced the frontiers of electrochromics. The article describes the concept of screen printed passive matrix addressed electrochromic displays, demonstrated by dynamic QR codes and images with grayscale effects. The main advantage is the unique pixel addressability, which allows utilization of the passive matrix addressing protocol, hence, these displays enable a variety of IoT applications within packaging, authentication and distributed healthcare:      

• The rise of electrochromics: Dynamic QR codes and grayscaling in printed passive-matrix displays, Scientific Reports, 12, 10959, 2022.