The world’s first 1Hz-refresh-rate liquid crystal display for low power consumption

Abstract Global energy policies urge us to reduce the power consumption of electronic devices, but it is inconsistent with the user’s needs of enhancing device performances, which discourages the global energy consumption requirement. In this work, the converse flexoelectricity is tailored to dramatically reduce power consumption while superior display image qualities are maintained in fringe-field switching (FFS) liquid crystal displays (LCDs). We report the first 1Hz-refresh-rate flicker-free FFS LCD in a 13.4-inch laptop display. It is inevitable having noticeable brightness deviation when the polarity of driving voltage alters at such low frequency driving, caused by flexoelectric effect and failure of voltage holding. Here, we thoroughly investigated nature of the converse flexoelectric contribution of mesogenic systems with optimum flexoelectric coefficients and molecular polarity, and we developed materials in accordance with the findings. The oxide semiconductor thin-film transistors in the backplane and LC alignment layers with optimum resistivity are adopted to promote voltage-holding characteristic and fully fill the duty cycle. The result shows that the quality of static images and videos at 1Hz- and 10Hz-refresh-rate respectively is as well maintained as that at 60Hz, and the measured power consumption is reduced by 83%, compared to that in a 60Hz-refresh-rate. It is believed that this work will open a new paradigm towards energy consumption in electronic devices, which satisfies the superior display performances in LCDs.