News

Fiber optic tech promises brighter signs, lower costs

October 1, 2007

HAMILTON, Canada — Liquid Fiber Displays, a company spun out of research conducted in the Faculty of Engineering at McMaster University, has combined a uniquely woven optical fiber array with current LCD (liquid crystal display) and LED (light-emitting diode) display sign technology. The hair-thin optical fibers replace more than 90 percent of the blue, green and red LEDs required by conventional LED displays.

The result is a high-resolution, high-brightness light module approximately four inches square with excellent color reproduction capability, and a significantly lower cost to manufacture and operate. LEDs account for approximately 70 to 80 percent of sign costs.

"It's a significant advancement from current electronic sign technology," said Adrian Kitai, a professor of engineering at McMaster, who developed the technology. "It has higher resolution capability than any other LED screen on the market, high brightness, higher reliability, lower power consumption and can reduce costs by up to four times compared to conventional LED displays."

To create a digital sign, the four-inch light modules are stacked in square panels of four. Panels are then joined together to form the desired display size. The technology features "invisible tiling" making the lines between tiles less visible.

A prototype of the technology has been developed and installed at the McMaster University Student Centre (MUSC) in Hamilton. The animated electronic sign displays text and graphics and is used to promote campus activities and announcements.

Liquid Fiber Displays is jointly owned by Kitai and two graduate students, Nimesh Bahl and Cristian Nunez, who developed the enterprise through the Xerox Centre for Engineering Entrepreneurship and Innovation at McMaster. The initiative has received an $117,000 award from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Idea-to-Innovation fund to help in commercialization.

"We've proven the technology works and is the best available," said Bahl. "No further research is required, just product design and production."