Preparation and properties of red inorganic hollow nanospheres for electrophoretic display

An effective approach had been developed for the preparation of Fe-doped TiO2 red hollow nanospheres via template method using PMMA-BA copolymers as the core template by a two-step hydrolysis process. The nanospheres were rarely displayed fragmentation and exhibited hollow structures with uniform size and shape. Then, the multicomponent Fe/Co/Al-doped TiO2 hollow nanospheres were produced with Co and Al as tinting metal ions so as to endow them with higher color saturation and brightness. The average diameter of the hollow spheres coated with a layer of ce-Fe2O3 was approximately 300 nm and the thickness of the layer was roughly 50 nm. The electrophoretic mobility and zeta potential of two kinds of hollow particles were about -1.0 x 10(-5) CM2 V-1 s(-1) and -100 mV, respectively. Finally, the electrophoretic inks prototype device was successfully assembled using dispersion of the obtained red hollow nanospheres in a mixed dielectric solvent with TiO2 white particles as contrast. Under an applied bias voltage of 30 V, the response time of the simple EPD device was 1121 ms and the max contrast was 3.173, which had shown great potential for practical application in a vivid chromatic electrophoretic display. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.