Here’s what E Ink Spectra™ 6 (short for E6) looks like under a microscope.

These images come from a 10-inch 200 PPI ePaper display.

Each color pixel is about 127x127 µm, composed of microcups filled with charged pigment particles.

Fig. 1: Mona Lisa’s smile as rendered on the panel.

Fig. 2: InkJoy logo shown at pixel-level magnification.

Pixel and Microcups/Microcapluses

As we all know, E Ink technology uses colored or monochrome charged particles driven by an electric field.

For E6, many nanometer-scale color particles are contained in microcups, which form the hexagonal grid shown in the picture above. Each particle is too small to be seen.

The particles are driven at the pixel level by the square TFT array.

In comparison, black-and-white E Ink panels use microcapsules (such as those in Carta).

The irregular round shapes are microcapsules, each smaller than the square pixel cells.

Particles are enclosed in microcapsules, which serve a similar function to microcups.

If there were no microcapsules or microcups, the charged particles would mix freely within the film and be difficult to control. Microcapsules or microcups confine them in tiny spaces, allowing precise and uniform movement under electric fields to form stable images.