[Philip Lelyveld comment: Summary, they've developed a really fast and bright liquid crystal formulation that they think is a breakthru for AR display technology. The authors are at the University of Central Florida and their work is funded by the US Airforce.]
We report a new nematic liquid crystal (LC) mixture with an ultra-low rotational viscosity (γ1 = 53.4 mPas @ 35°C), relatively high birefringence (Δn ≈0.15), and moderate dielectric anisotropy (Δε = −2.80 @ 35°C). When employed in a liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) projector with RGB light-emitting diodes (LEDs), a sub-millisecond response time is obtained without the need for complicated overdrive circuitry. Such a fast response time enables field sequential color display, which not only triples the optical efficiency and resolution density, but also greatly suppresses the image blur and color breakup. Moreover, the required cell gap is 1.2 µm, which is still manageable for high-yield manufacturing. We believe this mixture would find widespread applications for the emerging augmented reality displays.
See the full technical article here: https://www.osapublishing.org/ome/abstract.cfm?uri=ome-7-1-195