1975 Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Nicholas Sheridon)

Xerox PARC Gyricon Electronic Paper

A flexible sheet of millions of black-and-white balls that tumble in oil to hold a picture on zero power

HCIOutputDisplayElectronic PaperBistableResearch

Overview

Deep dive

Team & pioneers

Nicholas Sheridon. Inventor; physicist at Xerox PARC who conceived Gyricon as electronic paper in the mid-1970s.
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The laboratory where Gyricon was developed.

Media

A rolled Gyricon sheet — A rolled Gyricon sheet showing the flexible paper-like form factor. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Bichromal beads — The bichromal polyethylene spheres whose rotation renders the image. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Gyricon operating principle — Operating principle: charged beads rotate in oil pockets to present white or black halves. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Sources