Transparent touch-sensitive switching system

• US 20060071819A1
• Filed: 11/12/2003
• Published: 04/06/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/09/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Johnson, Mark Thomas, De Boer, Dirk Kornelis Gerhardus
• Application Number:
  US10/537,388
• Publication Number:
  US 20060071819A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 341/15
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/13338 Input devices, e.g. touch panels
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means
• CPC Class Codes: H01H 13/702 with contacts carried by or formed from layers in a multilayer structure, e.g. membrane switches
• CPC Class Codes: H01H 2201/02 Piezo element

Abstract

The invention pertains to an at least partially transparent touch-sensitive switching system comprising at least two electrodes provided with means for applying a voltage thereto and spaced from each other by a layer comprising at least one region that optically changes by applying the voltage, and at least one region comprising a piezoelectric material generating a voltage when applying pressure thereto.

Claims

1. An at least partially transparent touch-sensitive switching system comprising at least two electrodes provided with means for applying a voltage thereto and spaced from each other by a layer comprising at least one region that optically changes by applying the voltage, and at least one region comprising a piezoelectric material generating a voltage when applying pressure thereto.

2. The touch-sensitive switching system of claim 1 wherein at least one of the electrodes is transparent.

3. The touch-sensitive switching system of claim 1 wherein the piezoelectric material is a piezoelectric polymer.

4. The touch-sensitive switching system of claim 1 wherein the regions that optically change by applying the voltage are regions comprising a fluid or a dispersion of particles in a fluid.

5. The touch-sensitive switching system of claim 4 wherein the fluid comprises liquid crystalline molecules.

6. The touch-sensitive switching system of claim 4 wherein the particles are electrostatically charged.

7. The touch-sensitive switching system of claim 6 wherein the electrostatically charged particles have a color that is in contrast to the color of the fluid, or wherein the particles are dispersed in a colorless fluid and the dispersion comprises at least two different sorts of electrostatically charged particles, whereof the colors are in contrast to each other.

8. The touch-sensitive switching system of claim 1 wherein the regions that optically change by applying the voltage are embedded in a matrix of the piezoelectric material.

9. The touch-sensitive switching system of claim 6 wherein the dispersion of electrostatically charged particles in a fluid is enclosed in a capsule of a polymeric material.

10. An electro-optical display comprising the touch-sensitive switching system of claim 1.

11. The display of claim 10 wherein each region that optically changes by applying the voltage corresponds to one pixel, and wherein each pixel is a pressure-sensitive pixel.