Design and fabrication of patternable electrophoretic display textiles based on fiber-crossbar structure

Abstract

Advances in flexible light-emitting yarns suitable for weaving have laid a foundation for the development of display textiles, propelling progress in flexible and wearable display devices. However, current luminous fibers/yarns suffer from critical limitations of high driving voltage, which pose safety concerns and result in poor sunlight readability, creating an urgent need for a wearable display technology that addresses these gaps. To solve these issues, we proposed a novel strategy to prepare electrophoretic display yarns (EPDY) with adjustable fineness via textile twisting technology combined with a simple continuous dip-coating process. The resulting EPDY exhibits high strength, flexibility, and excellent compatibility with common textile yarns. Besides, an electrophoretic fabric display unit was constructed by interlacing conductive yarns and EPDY to form a fiber crossbar architecture at the warp–weft contact points. For the first time, our study demonstrates a stable patterned EPD display integrated post-weaving through a passive matrix driving method. Notably, the fabricated patterned EPD fabric achieves an ambient contrast ratio of 5.7 under a driving voltage of 34 V, effectively mitigating the critical issue of poor outdoor readability. This work not only establishes a practical approach for fabricating weavable patterned EPD yarns and fabrics but also provides a technical foundation for improving the sunlight readability in wearable display systems. Ultimately, this research paves the way toward the industrialization of low-power wearable electrophoretic display devices, advancing the advancement of next-generation comfortable and wearable electronics.