Plastic Electronics Driving An LCD Monitor

denisbergeron writes: "Philips Research develops the world's first display using polymeric semiconductors as pixel drivers, you can see the scientific paper here and a large public version here nothing realy new, but two beautifull picture of a 3.5 cm polymer display with a lot of other related pictures. No ready for the prime time, but almost there." "Polymeric" is just a fancy way to say "plastic" -- and the good news is that compared to silicon, "fewer production stages and less stringent clean room conditions are required," thus making for cheaper display technology. Good news to me, and bad news to anyone who just plunked down $15,000-plus-tax for a big wall-mounted plasma TV.

Comments

Techy about plastic

[DarkMan]

[Yes this is slightly OT. But it's still science.]

"Polymeric" is just a fancy way to say "plastic"

Actually, polymeric does not mean plastic.

Plastic, strictly, means that you can shape the material by squeezeing it into shape. (As opposed to elastic, like a rubber band, that will go back to it's original shape when you stop squeezing it).

Polymeric means built up from lots of reapeating units. What are commonly called plastics (Polyethylene for example) are polymeric. But so are proteins. And lots of other things, that are't plastics.

To get marginally back on topic, just because this is made using a polymer does _not_ mean that it will be flexable. Perspex (Polymethylmethacrylate), the ploymer used in windows, is not flexable. Given that semiconductors require a crystaline structure, I don't think that these polymers will be plastic.

You can get flexable polymers that can do this sort of thing, but they are not semiconductors, they are called elecroluminescent polymers.

Different thing entierly

More Interseting stuff- It's bendable!

[Anaplexian]

By definition, most polymers(plastics) are bendable. Sincethere is no rigidity like silicon here, I suppose we could have televisions or computer screens wrapped on Basket balls.
I think its possible.
This also brings cool,cool applications into my mind. If I had a TV - T-shirt, I could have a video cam on my back and show It up front. In effect, I'm Invisible!!! hahahah!
But, definitely, Plastics are the future, and If one projects a little bit further, you'll see we're all heading towards mimicking nature.

"Science fiction is nothing but Reality in Future tense"

(do check out http://iotaspace.net )

Links to hi-res pictures

[dmccarty]

Just so everyone doesn't have to go through the submission process to view a jpeg, here are the links to the high-resolution images:

• First A 64 x 64-pixel Polymer-Dispersed Liquid-Crystal Display (PDLCD) used to demonstrate the operation of a polymer-based active-matrix thin-film transistor (TFT) driver in two complementary states. The display has a size of 3.5 by 3.5 cm2.
• Second Same.
• T hird Semiconducting polymers sandwiched between two electrodes can be used to make large areas that generate light of any colour. The production process (spincoating) is simple, safe and inexpensive. In the photograph are shown the different polymer materials, and their solutions (top), a glass plate with the polymer thin film after the spin coating process (bottom) and three operating displays of two different colours (in the middle)
• Fourth Example of a display based on polymer LEDs
• Fifth Life time test of polymer light-emitting displays and backlights.
• Sixth Flexible 3-inch polyimide foil with a variety of components and electronic test circuits. The circuits still operate when the foil is sharply bent
• Seventh Complete radio-frequency identification transponder integrated on an antitheft sticker.

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