Transparent tagged posts

Washington State University researchers used light to write a highly conducting electric path in a crystal. This opens up the possibility of transparent, three-dimensional electronics that, like an Etch-A-Sketch, can be erased and reconfigured. On the left, a photograph of a sample with four metal contacts. On the right, an illustration of a laser drawing a conductive path between two contacts.
Credit: Washington State University

Transparent, 3D electronics can be configured and erased like an Etch A Sketch. It serves as a proof of concept for a phenomenon that WSU researchers first discovered by accident 4 years ago. At the time, a doctoral student found a 400-fold increase in the electrical conductivity of a crystal simply by leaving it exposed to light...

Printed, flexible touchscreen. Credit: INM

Flexible smart phones are desirable for a lot of users. Up to now the displays of the innumerable phones and pods are rigid and do not yield to the anatomical forms adopted by the people carrying them. By now it is no longer any secret that the big players in the industry are working on flexible displays. INM – Leibniz Institute for New Materials shows, how they might become reality in the near future: At this year’s Hannover Messe, INM will be presenting suitable coatings for cost-efficient inkjet processes on 24 April to 28 April.

INM will be demonstrating flexible touch screens, which are produced by printing recently developed nanoparticle inks on thin plastic foils...

Yue Cao et al. A Transparent, Self-Healing, Highly Stretchable Ionic Conductor, Advanced Materials (2016). DOI: 10.1002/adma.201605099

Scientists, including several from the University of California, Riverside, have developed a transparent, self-healing, highly stretchable conductive material that can be electrically activated to power artificial muscles and could be used to improve batteries, electronic devices, and robots. The findings represent the first time scientists have created an ionic conductor, meaning materials that ions can flow through, that is transparent, mechanically stretchable, and self-healing.

The material has potential applications in a wide range of fields...