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Light Emitting Pictures On Standard Inkjet Printer

CrashRide writes: "This story on FOX states that UofA scientists have discovered a way to print light-emitting pictures on thin sheets of plastic using a standard inkjet printer. Fold up pocket monitors?" The article says that these scientists have produced "OLEDs of simple bands of light, a scorpion, the University of Arizona logo and even photographs of themselves."

54 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Makes... by B00yah · · Score: 5, Funny

    reading comic books under the sheets at night a lot easier :)

    1. Re:Makes... by Nick's+Name · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, comics books. O.K. buddy, that's not what i was thinking.

  2. The Cost? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Insightful
    So I can run my $72 photo inkjet with an $800 print cartridge!

    This is the Gilette model: "Give 'em razors, charge for blades!"

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  3. Amazing! Is there no new technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    that pr0n can't benefit from?

    1. Re:Amazing! Is there no new technology by ThatComputerGuy · · Score: 2

      Well, a CueCat with, umm, force feedback would work... yeah..

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  4. Protection by bonzoesc · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Jabbour said the next step of development is to find a way to protect the sheets from moisture, which damages them.
    I can't wait until they discover lamination. Imagine what these could do for portable video games! Gone are the days of using a halogen head lamp like miners do just to play Game Boy.
    1. Re:Protection by VA+Software · · Score: 2

      According to altavista it says "tsardanik". I hope children aren't reading /.

      --

      ---
      http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml
  5. Bookmakers, Etc? by Ieshan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It says "cheap".

    Could industries like bookmakers or publishers use this sort of thing? I'm rather fond of the glowing text on the black background, if you ask me, and it would provide a great alternative to something like a reading light. of course, it'll probably jack the cost of books up. Even though they do claim it'll be "inexpensive".

    However, I do think their assumption about 'computer monitors' is silly - right now, they're printing flat pictures, not moving, highly detailed ones.

    1. Re:Bookmakers, Etc? by MrResistor · · Score: 2
      It would still require electricity to power the book, and there would have to be traces embedded in the pages to get the electricity to the print. Interesting idea, though.

      I don't think the computer monitor idea is silly at all, especially when you consider the DPI that a good printer can acheive. You'd just print an array of RGB dots on a sheet thats, say, 34"x44" (standard E size, which most plotters can handle, including the inkjet plotter I'm eyeing thoughtfully at this very moment). Frankly, a 56" diagonal viewable screen that I can pin to my wall like a poster doesn't sound silly to me at all...

      Of course, it'll still require support circuitry and such (which can also be printed, I used to work at a company that did that) and interface connectors and such, so in the short term it would just make flat-panel monitors cheaper.

      --
      Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
    2. Re:Bookmakers, Etc? by squaretorus · · Score: 2

      As soon as those tiny musical chips were cheap enough they appeared in kids books, then in birthday cards, then in well... anything.

      The opportunities to make kids books light up are huge here - I'll stake 20 quid that thats the first implementation of this available in your average supermarket!

    3. Re:Bookmakers, Etc? by MrResistor · · Score: 2
      True enough, especially if it was only providing power to the page it was open to.

      I know people who would buy them. A friend of mine used to buy glow-in-the-dark highlighters so he could study in the dark, or so he claimed anyway...

      --
      Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
  6. Of course the ultimate application is... by lavaforge · · Score: 2

    ...GLOW IN THE DARK PORN!!!

    But seriously, what are some real world applications for things like this? I haven't seen one in real life, so I don't know how bright they are, but I don't think we're at pocket monitor level yet.

  7. So soon we'll be hearing... by Eryq · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The dog ate my homework."

    "Why didn't you print out another copy?"

    "It ate my monitor too..."

    --
    I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
    1. Re:So soon we'll be hearing... by ortholattice · · Score: 2, Funny

      "The dog ate my homework."

      "Why didn't you print out another copy?"

      "It ate my monitor too..."

      "Why didn't you print out another monitor?"

      "It ate my computer too..."

  8. Not a fold-up monitor by Pulzar · · Score: 3, Flamebait

    This is just a poster that glows -- it's a static picture that glows using a low amount of electricity. Unless you're running Windows, and all you need to display is the same bsod, you'll need a more "dynamic" display :).

    --
    Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
    1. Re:Not a fold-up monitor by dollargonzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      well, looking at it that way, neither is a liquid crystal display. i think the idea they were trying to get at is that if yuo wire it up such that the light emission of the sheet can be varied (hence the "turns electrical energy into light" phrase in the article). the problem is never how to make it a display, but rather what to do with the surface that is supposed to emit light. before it was CRT, now LCD, next: lightup sheets?

      --
      BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
    2. Re:Not a fold-up monitor by Amoeba+Protozoa · · Score: 2

      Any full color matrix LCD or Plama display is essentially a poster that glows white when it is fully turned on, except the dots are really, really small. The pictures happen because each of the component dots in the "poster" are (for the most part) individually addressable.

      I think this research is more about the manufacturing technique, not about the final product.

      -AP

  9. This is cool. by laserjet · · Score: 2

    This is what was done with a multimillion dollar grant from the US Dept. of Defense. I think it's pretty cool, even though the technology itself is pretty old (the article mentioned it was 14 *years* old).

    Basically all they do is put a solution onto plastic sheets that turns electrical energy into light. This is cool because in a few years we might see these special inkjet cartdiges appear on the consumer market. They would probably be in a kit including the cartridges with the special solution in them, and plastic paper to print on, some coating for the "paper", and a power supply to rig the whole thing up. You could make some pretty cool signs with this, yes indeed.

    I think it would be cool to make halloween signs, amateur beer signs for your bachelor pad, or coat your car's inside roof with them, and instead of having a dome-light, the whole inside roof of your car lights up!

    Cool stuff.

    --
    Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
  10. Addressing by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 2

    This sounds all well and good, but what I don't understand is how they address the individual pixels. If I read this correctly, they are spraying the light emitting pixels onto the sheet. But how are they getting the power to each pixel? Are they spraying wires on as well?

    --
    Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
  11. Print Preview by jesser · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does that mean the Mozilla team doesn't have to fix bug 2586, "Print Preview animates GIFs"? Here's the original bug report:

    In Print Preview, animated GIFs are still animated. I would love to say
    that it is not a bug, but unless the printing code can then back the
    preview up by animating the printed copy, I suggest the Print Preview
    should show a static image.

    This also applies to applets, Javascript, "hover" and "active" pseudo
    classes, and so on.

    --
    The shareholder is always right.
  12. Re:Hey Timothy... by RedWizzard · · Score: 2
    For example, an editor might cut out stupid comments from a post, such as "Fold up pocket monitors?".
    The same stupid comment is in the Fox article.
  13. Still not as cool as eInk by decipher_saint · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I first saw this on a Sunday afternoon techie program, think about text flying around, blinking or being added dynamically via a wireless lan connection to a page and you've got the idea of it's coolness (even though its only monochrome).

    The thing I like about eInk the most is that its fairly high-res (well, it looks sharp to me) and that it does not require back-lighting, it reads like paper under natural light.

    http://www.eink.com/

    --
    crazy dynamite monkey
  14. Think of the implications by tcd004 · · Score: 5, Funny

    on oragami.

  15. UA OLED Research Dept by hmckee · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is a better story on the UA newspaper. And here is the link to research department. Not much here yet except for an animation.

    1. Re:UA OLED Research Dept by Quizme2000 · · Score: 2

      I didn't exactly fall for that Fox News garbage either, I read the article from jun 2000 about using screen printers to as a way to manufacture OLED's. The previous OLED article on slashdot was pretty good too.

      --
      "Get them before they get....
  16. Re:Hey Timothy... by aozilla · · Score: 2

    For example, an editor might cut out stupid comments from a post, such as "Fold up pocket monitors?".

    The same stupid comment is in the Fox article.

    So it's not only stupid, it's plagiarism.

    --
    ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
  17. Making a fold-up monitor. by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is just a poster that glows -- it's a static picture that glows using a low amount of electricity. Unless you're running Windows, and all you need to display is the same bsod, you'll need a more "dynamic" display :).

    If you can print conducting traces, you could set up a grid pattern of traces around pixels that would let you selectively activate pixels, much as you do in a passive-matrix LED. At any given time, one horizontal line (say) would be ground, and the rest would be at Vdd. Vertical lines would be driven or not driven depending on whether you want pixels in the active line on or off. If these printed pixels really are OLEDs - diodes - then you won't have to worry about the other horizontal traces shorting across the vertical lines.

    I'm sure there are a number of ways of printing conducting traces with ink. Even a high-resistance trace could be electroplated after printing with thicker metal.

    The only question is whether a) the type of OLEDs printed with this technology are really diodes, passing current only in one direction, and 2) whether instantaneous current can be high enough to give an acceptable _average_ current (and brightness) per row over the whole scanning cycle. A row turned on one thousandth of the time needs to be a thousand times as bright when it's on.

    Other methods of addressing pixels in a display are of course possible. This is just one of the easiest (not necessarily best).

    1. Re:Making a fold-up monitor. by merlin_jim · · Score: 2

      One way to fix the brightness problem is to print a capacitor parallel to the diode... not hard, when you consider that you'll already have to print on both sides anyways (otherwise the horizontal and vertical lines will short out)

      Then, all you have to do is give enough juice that the cap gets a nice good charge while it can.

      --
      I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
  18. For those of us who care... by Quizme2000 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not trusting the headline whores at fox news, I did a little searching on google and found this article published in June of 2000. It has a better review of the actually technology from a pure science point of view, rather than the "marketing press release as if it were a product" garbage that was posted.

    --
    "Get them before they get....
  19. so what happens? by night_flyer · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ultimately, the technology could lead to computer monitors that you fold up and put in your pocket like a handkerchief.

    when you accidently blow your nose with it?

    --


    Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
    Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
  20. Already been done (Re:slow logic circuits) by AJWM · · Score: 3, Informative

    does this mean that they can be wired back to back to create spray on transistors? Ultracheap custom chips

    Spray on transistors are almost there. (The linked article mentions some spray on circuitry but the (fast) transistors are rubber-stamped, they're still working on spraying those). The folks described here are doing spray-on polymer transistors.

    Hmm, couple the LEDs, the transistors and some good optical sensors and you can make yourself a cloak of invisibility...

    --
    -- Alastair
  21. Re:Power by Mandelbrute · · Score: 2
    So to read your newspaper I need a battery.
    No! With this small solar cell taken from a calculator you can read your glowing newspaper in the dar... damn!

  22. No! by Greyfox · · Score: 5, Funny
    You could use it as a monitor! Just with a really slow refresh rate! Imagine the game of quake...

    Print a page...
    Move joystick...
    Print a page...

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  23. This was done in June 2000 by Epson & CDT by jgaynor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This was done in June of 2000 by Epson-Sieko (yes the printer people) and CDT, a British company that researches OLEDs and similar crap.

    Google brings up some resulst verifiying this but unfortunately the real copies are down - heres what google has cached.

    The prototype colour display has been made using CDTâs red, green and blue polymer materials and an industry first ink-jet printing process developed for the project.

  24. Electronic Ink & Paper Article by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 3, Informative
    November's Scientic American has an article about two competing technologies for electronic displays on paper (in addition to the UoA stuff cited here).

    Rather than illumination, they use electrified pigments or rotaing, embedded spheres to change the color of a sheet of plastic. One difference with the technology at UoA is that charge is only needed to change the image, not maintain it. One of the developers described it as "paper that prints itself," which gives you an idea of what kind of applications it could be used for (e.g. hourly updated price signs=good. Monitor to watch a live video stream=bad).

    --

    "Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."

  25. Re:Hey Timothy... by night_flyer · · Score: 2

    hey dumbass... it wasnt copied... it was paraphrased... look that one up... moron

    --


    Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
    Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
  26. Re:Hey Timothy... by aozilla · · Score: 2

    So the same stupid comment isn't in the Fox article. Mea culpa. Look that one up. :)

    --
    ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
  27. Flexible EL products already available by andzik · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is a completely blatant plug, but it is on topic. There is an EL technology that allows for a paper-thin cold light source. The first one we have produced is a "Linux" lamp. I have video of one on our web site http://www.exoticlights.com The lamp not only glows but also is animated. We have a few prototype units for sale.

  28. This was done in 1998 by silverarcticsilver · · Score: 4, Informative

    When I was a graduate student at UCLA in 1998, I heard of Professor their that already patented the process for using ink-jet printing techology for creating Organic LED devices. The original paper is: S.C. Chang, J. Bharathan, and Y. Yang; "Dual-color polymer LEDs processed by hybrid inkjet printing technology", Appl. Phys. Lett., 73, 2561, (1998). If you want to know more about this, visit Dr Yang's website at http://www.seas.ucla.edu/ms/faculty1/yang-yang.htm l.

  29. Annother link by Catskul · · Score: 2, Informative

    Heres a link to a neat demo of how OLEDs work.

    http://www.optics.arizona.edu/oled/

    --

    Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
  30. Old news by Alien54 · · Score: 2
    Just for fun check out this story from Cutting The Edge:

    http://www.cuttingtheedge.com/qtakes/2001/foldable _lcd/foldable.shtm

    Going to the list of articles you can see that this was featured back at the end of July. Sometimes it takes a long time for neat stuff to leak out.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
  31. You already follow this model. by systemaster · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I work in computer sales, so i should know. Cost of most home purchased printers $50-200. Cost of ink(~$40) over 5 years, replacing ink once a year, black + color, 80 * 5 = 400. So you pay like 2x for the ink vs the printer.

    --
    LinuxWorx
    Spelling errors are intentional as are gramatical error
  32. Link to video clip by Catskul · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here is an intersting page at universaldisplay corp. It includes some neat pictures and some video clips of the thing working. Not quite the same, but its OLED and on a flexible display. Neat.
    http://www.universaldisplay.com/foled.php

    --

    Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
  33. monotors by child_of_mercy · · Score: 2

    "right now, they're printing flat pictures, not moving, highly detailed ones"

    hmm you might want to take a closer look at your LCD screen and check for moving parts.

    to make things look like they move you just have to print these things at great density and retain the power to turn them on and off at will.

    I would say it will certainly be possible to do it with this technology, but by the time it's that developed the established technologies will have moved on a ways and it won't be worth it.

    --
    'There is a Light that never goes out.'
  34. Lets think outside the box by child_of_mercy · · Score: 2

    Ok guys, not every new invention *must* be plugged into your computer in order to be revolutionary.

    This process could obliterate the neon sign industry.

    And bring Stephenson's "Loglo" a big step closer to reality as every available surface gets plastered in pulsing lights.

    --
    'There is a Light that never goes out.'
  35. missing info by dragonfly28 · · Score: 2, Informative

    there's a lot of info missing from the crappy article linked. I myself are working with OLED's and the way these people represent there results is complete BS!!!
    All this work has already been done a few years ago, and they dont mention that you still need to have ITO electrodes to keep te thing running/emitting light. And the distance between top/bottom or right to left side is in my idea way too long.

  36. Glowing Walls? by Lally+Singh · · Score: 5, Insightful
    How about getting drywall presprayed with this stuff? Then you just run a small wire down to your light switch and the ceiling (or all the walls) light up. Power usage down, no need for lamps!


    And most importantly, it'll look like those cool futuristic movies from the 1960s!

    --
    Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
  37. It'll forever change the face of bullying... by Colin+Bayer · · Score: 2, Funny

    by allowing bullies to not only put "kick me" signs on unfortunate kids' backs, but give them animated tips on form and ideal kick positioning. They could even tie in dynamic content such as a kick counter, and an automated "principal mode" that would change it to match the color of the wearer's shirt when an authority figure happened by.

    I can see it now; I'll be sitting by a fire, talking to my grandkids...

    "I remember the days when we couldn't change the wallpaper in our house without walking 10 miles to the home improvement store... in the snow... uphill... both ways!"

    --
    Want Linux games? HERE.
  38. CDT: Inventors of LEP by jamesots · · Score: 3, Informative

    People may like to look at the website of Cambridge Display Technology, who invented LEPs.

    --
    Ho hum for the life of a bear
  39. Re:Now all I need to do is print my own processor by Britney · · Score: 2, Funny
    onto a sheet of legal-sized paper

    Pardon me, are there illegal sizes for paper?

    --

    --
    (if you're still looking for the point, it was back there, in the post. </sig>)
  40. Spiffy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Y'know this is kewl and all, but it's just what we need: more light! It's bad enough we have enough excess light to see most of the US from orbit. Before we start postering the earth and chroming the moon, let's at least figure out that street and highway lights should point down. Not into the atmosphere.

    Anyone who has lived in the city and moved to the country or vice versa knows what I mean.

    Light Posters?! Yippee. Once this tech becomes available to the yokel population we're going to see huge self lit billboard along the highway. Hope you don't need to see while you drive.

    Anonymous cynic

  41. Talking of sizes for paper... by Britney · · Score: 2, Funny
    Dictionary.com informs me:

    size
    n.
    Any of several gelatinous or glutinous substances usually made from glue, wax, or clay and used as a glaze or filler for porous materials such as paper, cloth, or wall surfaces.

    Cool!

    --

    --
    (if you're still looking for the point, it was back there, in the post. </sig>)
  42. Go U of A optics! by rkent · · Score: 2

    Yay! The U of A's optics department is second to none. Here's the homepage for that department:

    http://www.optics.arizona.edu/Directory/default.as p

    The FoxNews article is pretty slim, and I can't find "paper-thin OLED" on that departmental page, though I suspect the "Administrative and Research Web Sites" link would be a good start...

  43. Interestingly I have done something similar by Yarn · · Score: 2

    At the lab where I worked we needed a radioactive test pattern for a PET scanner, so I hit on the idea of filling an old inkjet cartridge with oxygen-15 labelled water.

    The half-life is only a few minutes, but that's long enough for the print to dry and to run the test.

    Don't try this at home though, we had 10cm thick lead to put the printer behind!

    --
    -Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent