Chen and his co-workers made the 3-inch wide display screen flexible by developing a stainless steel foil topped with a thin layer of circuits that control an overlying film of electronic ink.

That "ink," developed in 1997 by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist, contains tiny capsules with black and white particles with opposing electrical charges floating in a clear fluid.

When a negative voltage is run through circuits behind these capsules, the positive white particles move to the capsule's top. A positive current does the same to the negative black particles.

The human eye blends these resulting patterns of black- or white-topped capsules into text displayed in a traditional column.

Currently, information and power is fed to the screen through a wired hookup. But Chen's team is working on a self-contained system that could receive data through a wireless connection.