Chameleon Liquid Could Replace LCDs

InvisblePinkUnicorn writes "NewScientist reports on a color-changing liquid that could cheaply replace the color components of standard LCDs. According to researchers at UC Riverside, the liquid 'contains tiny iron oxide particles coated with plastic. It is cheap and easy to make, and could also be used in flexible, rewritable, electronic paper.' From the article: 'The opposing forces of electrostatic repulsion [in the plastic] and magnetic attraction [in the iron oxide] result in the particles arranging themselves into an ordered structure, known as a colloidal "photonic crystal". The colloidal crystal reflects light because the spacing between neighboring particles in the structure is equivalent to the wavelength of light. Also, tuning the spacing slightly alters the exact wavelength, or colour, of light that is reflected. This can easily be done by varying the strength of the magnetic field applied to the crystal.'"

Comments

Liquid Paper already exists..

[EveryNickIsTaken]

And it's called white-out, duh!

Re:Liquid Paper already exists..

[ringfinger]

Dude -- You should clean the white out off your computer monitor - then you might be able to actually READ THE ARTICLE...

Re:Liquid Paper already exists..

[Ohreally_factor]

I didn't RTFA. I assumed that they were talking about actual chameleon liquid. I was thinking all those "Will It Blend?" experiments had finally paid off.

Re:Liquid Paper already exists..

[Manos_Of_Fate]

That would be "liquid chameleon".

Re:Toner?

[IBBoard]

No, they just invented the entirely new "toner in liquid". There's no prior art and the patent is coming soon.

photonic crystals ?

[Arthur B.]

For Aiur !

Re:brown and other hues

[ajs318]

Now, that's an idea! Let's make a display that is physically incapable of reproducing the colour ginger! Then, sufferers will be able to show other people digital photographs of themselves looking normal .....

Re:lets get to it

[object88]

Too expensive, too cancer-causing, too impossible, etc.

I hate it when my new technology crosses that painful threshold between "slightly impossible" and "too impossible".

Obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

What do we use when we run out of Chameleons to liquify?

Re:But wait...

[tsa]

Yeah, because the wall behind your monitor changes all the time! Never a dull moment there!

Re:I don't see how this can ever work

[darkshadow]

Well,you could put this panel on the end of some sort of tube, and have a gun of some sort emitting a focused magnetic field that swipes across the panel in an array of some sort changing the pixels one by one until it builds an image.