US Patent 7495726 - Transflective nanoparticle LCD

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7495726.html

Usually flat panel displays such as LCDs are either optically transmissive, in which light is selectively transmitted through the panel from a backlight, or optically reflective, in which ambient light is selectively reflected. Reflective LCDs consume less power but lack visibility under low lighting and transmissive LCDs have greater visibility but require significant power. In order to create a low-power, high visibility display transflective designs have been developed. This patent from Hon Hai teaches using reflective nanoparticles to achieve a transflective display with improved reflection and transmission parameters. Claim 1 reads:

1. A transflective LCD device comprising:

a liquid crystal layer; and

a transflective layer comprising:

a matrix made of a transparent material; and

a plurality of reflective nano-particles configured for reflecting ambient light, the reflective nano-particles having grain sizes in the approximate range from 2 nm to 20 nm, said reflective nano-particles being dispersed uniformly and randomly in the entire matrix.