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Super-Thin Smart Glazing Displays

A "smart glazing" discovered by University of Oxford researchers seems well on its way to providing us with science fictional materials. Oxford Sciences Innovation, the £320m investment company established to provide capital and scaling expertise to Oxford spin-outs, is the lead investor in the new company.


( Bhaskaran and Hosseini show smart glazing, thin film materials)

The invention, by a team led by Professor Harish Bhaskaran and his postdoctoral researcher Peiman Hosseini at the University’s Department of Materials, attracted attention from both industry and investors following the publication of a paper in Nature in 2014.

Professor Bhaskaran said: “This new approach allows us to create materials which can not only manipulate light very cleverly, but are also very cost-effective. We will be creating smart glazing which allows only certain wavelengths of light into a building, giving instant control over both the heat and light being transmitted, and over the appearance of the glass. We will also be working on other applications for these thin film materials including novel reflective displays and security markings.

“This technology is capable of providing vivid colour displays which appear similar to paper, yet with very high resolution. It is also capable of rendering extremely high-resolution videos that can be seen in bright sunlight.”

Fans of EC Tubbs' 1958 novel The Mechanical Monarch are no doubt thinking of the flexible wall sheet display from that novel.

Also, Larry Niven wrote about a similar idea in his 1976 novel A World Out of Time; see this reference article on poster TV.

Via Begbroke Science Park.

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