An electronic paper with human-eye resolution
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Access through your institution Buy or subscribe To improve the sheer pixel density for the reflective displays, optical metasurfaces stand out as a contender. For example, metal nanostructures could be designed to scatter light-specific colours relying on plasmonic resonances, known as Mie resonances, where the geometry of a nanostructure dictates its colour. However, the limitation is that the images are static — once such a display is fabricated, the colours cannot change. Previous efforts to achieve dynamic control in the metasurfaces either require external microscale light sources or introduce auxiliary colour-switching materials.Now, writing in Nature, Xiong and colleagues (Nature 646, 1089–1095; 2025) report a retina E-paper comprising a reflective display with a pixel density exceeding 25,000 pixels per inch (PPI), a number that surpasses the theoretical resolving limit of the human eye. The E-paper also supports full-colour video playback at over 25 Hz and consumes a power as small as 1.7 mW cm−2. This display contains nanodisks of tungsten trioxide (WO3), which is both a colour-generating metamaterial and a colour-changing electrochemical material. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Access options Access through your institution Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription $32.99 / 30 days cancel any time Learn more Subscribe to this journal Receive 12 print issues and online access $259.00 per year only $21.58 per issue Learn more Rent or buy this article Prices vary by article type from$1.95 to$39.95 Learn more Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Author informationAuthors and AffiliationsNature Materials https://www.nature.com/nmat/Wei FanAuthorsWei FanView author publicationsSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarCorresponding authorCorrespondence to Wei Fan.Rights and permissionsReprints and permissionsAbout this articleCite this articleFan, W. An electronic paper with human-eye resolution. Nat. Mater. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02447-9Download citationPublished: 12 December 2025Version of record: 12 December 2025DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02447-9Share this articleAnyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Get shareable linkSorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.Copy shareable link to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative