Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Nanowire Electronics Transparent And Flexible
Transparent transistors and circuits have been successfully fabricated using nanowires of indium oxide or zinc oxide.
(Transparent indium-oxide nanowire transistors shown (invisibly!) in red line zones)
"The nanowires themselves are transparent, the contacts we put on them are transparent and the glass or plastic substrate is transparent," said David Janes, a researcher at Purdue University's Birck Nanotechnology Center and a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering."Our study demonstrates that nanowire electronics can be fully transparent, as well as flexible, while maintaining high performance levels," said Tobin J. Marks, the Vladimir N. Ipatieff Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern. "This opens the door to entirely new technologies for high-performance transparent flexible displays."
This technological leap offers great hope to science fiction fans looking for futuristic devices from their favorite stories:
- Large-scale transparent displays on curved surfaces.
This would include windshield-mounted displays as well as heads-up displays for pilots. Consider the vision of the future presented by E.C. Tubb in his 1958 novel The Mechanical Monarch:Against one wall a wide sheet of clear material suddenly flared with light and swirling colour. It steadied and a woman stared from the screen. A woman with long dark hair and eyes that were like twin pools of midnight beneath her heavy brows...
(Read more about flexible wall sheet display) - Flexible, clear e-paper displays
Consider the poster TV from Larry Niven's A World Out of Time:
She set up a screen: a television that unrolled like a poster.
(Read more about Niven's poster TV - Flexible electronics for RFID tags, contactless credit cards and other electronics applications embedded on flexible surfaces.
How else am I going to get a sleeve watch, not to mention readout skin?I'm the only report I know who still uses his handwriter except to take notes…I snapped the fingers of my left hand…Three rows of four colored dots appeared on the heel of my left hand. By pressing the dots in different combinations with my fingertips I was able to write the story in shorthand, and watch the loops and lines scrawl themselves on a strip of readout skin on my wrist...
(Read more about readout skin)
"This is a different kind of wire," Janes said. "It is basically taking the place of the silicon in silicon electronics... Ideally, we want to have circuitry where each pixel [in a display] has a drive transistor and then some control transistors with it so that you can turn your pixels on and off," Janes said.
Via Eurekalert.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/27/2007)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Display ")
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...' - Iain M. Banks, 2010.
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come, HG Wells, 1936.
iPhone Air Fulfils Jobs' Promise From 2007 - A Giant Screen!
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.' - Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021.
Transparent 4K OLED Wireless TV From LG
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Monolith One Giant Industrial Metal 3D-printer
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Mooncrete' Lunar Regolith Concrete (LRC)
'And here they began to build...'
China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.'
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
Fully Electric, Fully Automated Vegetable‑growing Agribots
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
Vero Robotic Dog With Vacuum Cleaner Feet
'Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted.'
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
