| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20080212158 | ELECTROMECHANICAL DYNAMIC FORCE PROFILE ARTICULATING MECHANISM - An electromechanical dynamic force profile articulating mechanism for recovering or emulating true parallel plate capacitor actuation behaviors from deformable membranes used in MEMS systems. The curved deformation of flexible membranes causes their MEMS behavior to deviate from known interactions between rigid plates that maintain geometric parallelism during ponderomotive actuation. The present invention teaches three methods for reacquiring parallel plate behavior: superaddition or in situ integration of a rigid region within or upon the deformable MEMS membrane; creation of isodyne regions to secure parallelism by altering the force profile upon the membrane by introducing tuned and shaped voids within the conductive region associated with the membrane; and a hybrid composite approach wherein the conductive region is deposited after deposition of a raised rigid zone, thereby emulating isodyne behavior due to the increased inter-conductor distance in the vicinity of the rigid zone, in conjunction with rigidity benefits stemming directly from said zone. | 09-04-2008 |
| 20100033818 | MICROSTRUCTURES TO REDUCE THE APPEARANCE OF FINGERPRINTS ON SURFACES - Various shapes of microstructures and patterns of microstructures are provided to reduce the visibility of fingerprints, or other foreign marks, that occur on the surface of substrates due to handling. The microstructures may be formed directly on an exterior surface of a substrate to render the substrate fingerprint resistant, or formed on a surface of a polymeric sheet to provide a fingerprint-resistant protective layer that may be disposed onto a surface of a substrate (e.g., an optical display). The size, shape, orientation, and distribution of the microstructures across the surface of the substrate, or protective layer, may be optimized to enhance the durability of the microstructures and/or to impart a diffusing surface to the substrate for the particular application of the substrate. In some embodiments, the density and distribution of the microstructures on a transparent protective layer are also optimized in order to minimize the appearance of haze and Moiré when the protective layer is disposed on a surface of an optical display or other image producing surface. | 02-11-2010 |
| 20100073568 | Field Sequential Color Encoding For Displays - The optical performance is enhanced of display systems that use field sequential color and pulse width modulation to generate color and color gray scale values. Such enhancement may be achieved by various data encoding methods disclosed herein that may include temporal redistribution of bit values to mitigate color motional artifacts associated with field sequential color-based display systems, selective combination of intensity modulation, pulse width modulation, and/or the noncontiguous sequencing of primary colors. There is further an intelligent real-time dynamic manipulation of gray scale values in portions of an image that are computationally determined to be images of objects moving against a global background, so as to temporally front load or concentrate the bits comprising such moving objects and thereby further mitigate said motional artifacts using both actual and virtual aggregate pulse truncation across all primary colors being modulated. | 03-25-2010 |
| 20100079843 | NORMALLY EMITTING PIXEL ARCHITECTURE FOR FRUSTRATED TOTAL INTERNAL REFLECTION DISPLAYS - The present invention provides an apparatus that includes a waveguide and one or more pixels deployed adjacent the top surface of the waveguide which contains TIR light therein. Each pixel includes a deformable active layer having a first conductor and a driver electronics layer having a second conductor. The driver electronics layer is deployed in spaced-apart relation to the active layer and opposite the waveguide. In a quiescent state of a pixel, the active layer is in contact or near contact with the top surface of the waveguide so as to optically couple light out via FTIR (i.e., pixel's ON state). To actuate the pixel, the electronics layer is configured to selectively apply an electrical potential difference to the second conductor thereby causing the active layer to move away from the top surface so as to prevent the optical coupling of light out of the waveguide (i.e., pixel's OFF state). | 04-01-2010 |
| 20100085750 | CAVITY REFLECTOR LIGHT INJECTION FOR FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS - The present invention describes a light mixing waveguide including a transparent slab waveguide having a reflectorized edge, a pair of opposing side edges adjacent to the reflectorized edge, a light transfer edge opposite the reflectorized edge, and a plurality of cavities formed inside the slab waveguide, wherein at least one of the side edges is configured to receive light from one or more light sources so that the received light is totally-internally reflected from top and bottom surfaces of the transparent slab waveguide. Interaction of the received light, the cavities, and the reflectorized edge mixes the received light prior to the light passing through the light transfer edge and into a target optical system. | 04-08-2010 |
| 20110002577 | Backside Reflection Optical Display - The disclosure generally involves an optical (perhaps flat panel) display utilizing backside reflection for time-multiplexed optical shuttering. One display comprises a side-illuminated light guide associated with conditions for total internal reflection. A first surface of the light guide is elastomeric. Disposed against this elastomeric surface is an active layer that selectively deforms the elastomeric surface in locations that can correspond to display pixels. This resulting change in the geometry of the elastomeric surface can be sufficient to defeat the conditions for total internal reflection. When appropriate, light is reflected by the particular deformation and is ejected from another surface of the light guide. In this case, each location that allows light to exit could represent an activated display pixel. In certain situations, color flat panel displays of varying sizes may further implement field sequential color and time-multiplexed optical shuttering. | 01-06-2011 |
| 20110007377 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR REDUCING PIXEL OPERATIONAL VOLTAGE IN MEMS-BASED OPTICAL DISPLAYS - Embodiments of a display comprising pixels formed from suitably tethered deformable membrane-based MEMS subsystems are provided that include the means to dynamically alter the in-plane tension, and thus the effective spring constant, of the deformable membrane being ponderomotively propelled between active and inactive optical states, said dynamic alteration being effected by exploiting transverse piezoelectric properties of the deformable membranes. Manipulating the spring constant can reduce the actuation force required to turn pixels on, thus significantly reducing the operational voltages for the display composed of an array of such subsystems. Since display power rises with the square of the pixel drive voltage, such architectures give rise to more power efficient display systems. | 01-13-2011 |
| 20110063706 | ELECTROMECHANICAL DYNAMIC FORCE PROFILE ARTICULATING MECHANISM - An electromechanical dynamic force profile articulating mechanism for recovering or emulating true parallel plate capacitor actuation behaviors from deformable membranes used in MEMS systems. The curved deformation of flexible membranes causes their MEMS behavior to deviate from known interactions between rigid plates that maintain geometric parallelism during ponderomotive actuation. The present invention teaches three methods for reacquiring parallel plate behavior: superaddition or in situ integration of a rigid region within or upon the deformable MEMS membrane; creation of isodyne regions to secure parallelism by altering the force profile upon the membrane by introducing tuned and shaped voids within the conductive region associated with the membrane; and a hybrid composite approach wherein the conductive region is deposited atter deposition of a raised rigid zone, thereby emulating isodyne behavior due to the increased inter-conductor distance in the vicinity of the rigid zone, in conjunction with rigidity benefits stemming directly from said zone. | 03-17-2011 |
