Not all LCD screens require a backlight. Reflective and Transparent LCD's can operate without backlights (1, 2), and the hybrid transflective LCD's can use ambi

Not all LCD screens require a backlight. Reflective and Transparent LCD's can operate without backlights (1, 2), and the hybrid transflective LCD's can use ambient light and/or backlight to illuminate the image. Transflective LCDs improve sunlight readability without the need for an intense backlight. All LCD's essentially use a similar liquid crystal pixel that serves as a variable light shutter for polarized light. It's the back- and front-planes (e.g. addition or omission of RGB color filters, different types of backlights, fully or partially reflective layers, etc.) that differentiate different types of LCDs. If you have an old LCD laying around, with many of them you can actually take the different layers apart to access the active or passive matrix LCD panel (you'll end up with a transparent LCD). I did it once with a tiny LCD, it's pretty cool. Then you can play around with adding your own layers/lighting effects. 1.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_display https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal... 2.) https://www.winstar.com.tw/products/tft-lcd/transflective-tft.html https://www.winstar.com.tw/products/tft-lcd/transflective-tf...