Photon Antennas 2

This Idea is a variation on a theme that has been around for a while (see the first couple of links). The most common formal name appears to be "optical rectennas". A rectenna is a device basically consisting of an antenna and a rectifier, that collects radiant energy (most often in the form of microwaves) and converts it to electricity.

At optical frequencies there appear to exist some technical difficulties in constructing rectifiers that work at those frequencies. We shall assume the difficulties will be resolved. Of course. Mostly because the scientists and engineers are still willing to work on the problem.

So, with that assumption in the background, we can now envision a new kind of reflective display screen. Each pixel is made of stretch-able WHITE material, and has optical rectennas imprinted on it. The rectennas absorb a certain frequency of impinging light, and generate power from that, while the rest of the light is reflected by the white background.

When unstretched, the antenna-portion of each rectenna is set to absorb violet light. When stretched about twice their original length, they absorb red light. The stretching mechanism of course needs to be fast enough to keep up with whatever speed you want to change the color of a pixel. Naturally, the power collected by the rectennas should be used to do the stretching and unstretching of the pixels. This could be an amazingly low- power display, and possibly a power-generating display! (Especially if, say, there were some extra layers of rectennas specifically tuned to absorb infrared and ultraviolet light.)

It should be noted that THIS display, unlike practically all others, is not RGB (red-green-blue), but instead is CYM (cyan-yellow- magenta). Compare it to printer-inks that absorb certain colors and reflect the rest.