A proof-of-concept application of nanotechnology to fabricate transparent organic light emitting diodes (OLEDS) small enough to serve as pixels in high-resolution displays might lead to products like flexible color monitors and “heads-up” displays in car windshields. From a Purdue University press release “Engineers make first ‘active matrix’ display using nanowires“:
Engineers have created the first “active matrix” display using a new class of transparent transistors and circuits, a step toward realizing applications such as e-paper, flexible color monitors and “heads-up” displays in car windshields.
The transistors are made of “nanowires,” tiny cylindrical structures that are assembled on glass or thin films of flexible plastic. The researchers used nanowires as small as 20 nanometers … to create a display containing organic light emitting diodes, or OLEDS. The OLEDS are devices that rival the brightness of conventional pixels in flat-panel television sets, computer monitors and displays in consumer electronics…
“We’ve shown how to fabricate nanowire electronics at room temperature in a simple process that might be practical for commercial manufacturing,” said Tobin J. Marks, the Vladimir N. Ipatieff Research Professor in Chemistry in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a professor of materials science and engineering.
The research was published in Nano Letters (abstract).
—Jim
