Reflective display with selective reflection layers

A reflective display device 2 comprises a plurality of controllable light absorption layers 8B, R, G arranged in a stack, each of the layers is capable of absorbing incident light in a specified wavelength band, a selective reflector 10 is immediately behind at least one of the layers and is adapted to reflect at least some wavelengths of light within the wavelength band and substantially to transmit light of other wavelengths. Preferably there are three light absorption layers comprising a liquid crystal with dichroic dye dissolved therein, each may have an associated selective reflector (Figure 4) which may be a polymerised cholesteric material or Bragg reflector. A broadband reflector 10W may be located at the bottom of the stack. The display may further include at least one retarder (14, Figure 11) in the form or a quarter wave and/or half wave plate. The reflectors may be arranged to be not quite coplanar with the display plane or with each other.