Design and synthesis of a terrylene diimide-based stable cyan dye for printable electrofluidic display

Abstract

Electrofluidic displays (EFDs) have undergone significant advancement recently due to their many advantages, including reflective mode, fast response, and excellent optical performance. The design and synthesis of suitable cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY) dye for the oil layer is a basic premise for display operation. Compared with magenta and yellow dye, the development of cyan dye is more difficult due to its much red-shifted absorption, which requires choosing a more elongated backbone and further solving the solubility and stability issues. In this work, we synthesized a terrylene diimide (TDI)-based cyan dye TDIC and used it for the oil layer in the EFD. It exhibited excellent device performance with an extraordinarily high molar absorption coefficient up to 65 000 L moL⁻¹ cm⁻¹, high optical stability, and fast response. Eventually, we realized the inkjet printing process of TDIC for the fabrication EFD devices, which is conducive to the industrialization of the EFD display.