A group of researchers from Nottingham Trent University, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales Canberra in Australia have produced a “proof-of-concept technology” that could shake the foundations of the over $100 billion monitor, display and TV industries.
By replacing the traditional liquid crystal cells used in such devices with a new technology called “metasurfaces” (electrically tunable nanoparticle arrays), the researchers claim that this will “provide significant benefits over existing liquid crystal displays.”
What will it benefit?
Metasurfaces are much smaller in size than crystal cells (up to 10 times smaller), which means significantly smaller pixel pitches and – in theory – much higher pixel densities. The tightly packed pixels mean predictably smoother, hyper-realistic graphics, and it’s a great option for creative professionals who crave such innovations in their photo editing monitors.
Professor Mohsen Rahmani, leader of the NTU Advanced Optics and Photonics (AOP) Lab and one of the project contributors, explains the benefit of the new technology: “The main factor determining pixel sizes in LCD and LED displays today is the limitations of liquid crystal technology: they are thick and cross-talk of neighboring pixels. “They can’t be very small and very close to each other because of this. But our technology doesn’t have that limitation.”
The new technology also allows for much higher refresh rates, and the published press release states: “By varying the temperature of the material, the light can be changed almost 20 times faster than the human reluctance response time.”
The detection limit of the human eye is about 13 ms, or 78 Hz, but displays using metasurfaces can potentially reach refresh rates of more than 1,000 Hz, which is much higher than anything currently commercially available. This is especially a boon for gaming monitors.
The technology’s use of silicon also means a much longer lifespan, lower production costs and much lower power consumption. The move to silicon also allows for much thinner cells that can reduce weight and thickness by up to 99 percent and pave the way for a much wider range of applications.
Availability and pricing unknown
The key to transitioning to this new technology will depend on how quickly and easily existing LCD panel production lines can adapt to the new technology.
Professor Rahmani says: “With a good investment, we expect the product to be launched in around 5 years. Our technology is compatible with the production lines of LCD, LED displays. So there is no need to develop a production line from scratch. We believe it is very easy, because technically it is only liquid we need to replace the crystal cells with metasurface cells. Other layers inside the screen (light source, color filters, etc.) stay the same (remember we won’t need polarized layers anymore.)”
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