Transparent Transistors?

ExRex writes "New Scientist has this article about a material developed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology which is not only both a semi-conductor and ferro-magnetic at room temperature, but is also transparent. It may lead to flat panels which contain both image processing circuitry and memory in the screen itself." They're thinking laptops, but I'm thinking heads-up displays.

Comments

How a TFT works

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, in a tft screen the transistor does not generate the light. When one transistor turns on, it supplies electricity to the crystal, allowing it to untwist which allows light (from a light source behind the thin film of transistors) to shine through. So the transistors only act as switches to "turn on" or untwist the liquid crystal. They are already partially transparent since the film they are on covers the entire screen. For colour screens, there are three transistors per pixel (R, G, B). Therefore, these transparent transistors will probably allow brigher screens, but that is about it.

Re:A thought...

[AJWM]

Hence, you need a display, and some lensing, before dumping the image into a combiner in the main lens.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Neato high-tech X-ray specs just aren't the same thing when they're bulked up like night-vision goggles.

But then I thought...holographic optics. The right interference pattern on a thin film will do the job that a set of lenses would.

Re:A thought...

[wowbagger]

There's a small problem with embedding the display elements in the lenses - you need to have optics to cause the light from the display to be less divergent than it would normally be. In other words, you have to make the display elements be optically furthur from the viewer's eye. I have severe myopia (-8 diopters in my good eye), but even I cannot focus closer than about 15 cm without discomfort. You have to make the display look like it's about 1m from the viewer. Hence, you need a display, and some lensing, before dumping the image into a combiner in the main lens.

Now, if they can do this, and make the combiner not have a large impact on the view when the display is not showing anything (so that I don't have to remove the display to see normally), and get a Bluetooth link so that I don't have to have a huge cable running down my neck....

A thought...

[American AC in Paris]

Consider the combination of said transparent transistors with Cambridge Display's Light Emitting Polymer (LEP) technology. It is conceivable that one could create "Terminator glasses", store windows that can automatically display ads, and virtually anything else you'd ever want a pane of transparent material to display. The added bonus with the LEP technology is that backlighting is not necessary; the polymers themselves emit the necessary light when stimulated.

There's some potential here, I think...

information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.

Screen technology

[SirFlakey]

Not sure about heads up displays, or for that matter head mounted. I want displays on(in?) any transparent surface that needs to show info. (think transparent tabletop screens, windows, etc)
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No Tea

[Bojay Iverson]

Perhaps the Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses from the Guide can now become a reality.

im thinking too big or ur all thinking too small..

[evilocity]

Heck, do a few layers of these, and couldn't you build a whole PC (minus the hard drive, power supply, and ports) into a sheet of clear plexiglass? Add some touch sensors, some photoreceptors.. and you've got the holy grail of the computer artist.

Steve Jobs must be wetting his pants.