IT’s Tender Screen Touch
The fascination with faster and faster technological abilities and easier applications continues.
Now it embraces the lazy man’s way of using touch technology at is most highly developed in screen technology and the desire has become almost an obsession of the public to use these smart tools and playthings.
It comes at a price. All liquid crystal displays rely upon a special single material factor – known as indium tin oxide or ITO. Indium is a by-product of lead and zinc and hard to come by and difficult to work with. It is rare material and has a mysterious capacity being both electrically conducting and also optically transparent. But to scientists it is a matter of this material not absorbing photons of light and having patterns of function that involve electrons and energies not familiar to the novice.
However because ITO is transparent and also conductive it serves a unique role in electronic devices, flat screens, thin-film solar cells and can create a circuit that helps to convert sunlight into electricity.
Touch screens are definite ‘the IN thing’ and are highly desired and prized.
However, as we have gone beyond need to greed in an ever growing market involving billions of dollars, the problem emerges that ITO is not an unlimited resource. Although still plentiful in China, the worldwide reserves are anticipated to be exhausted by 2020. China is restricting export of its material.
Alternatives are highly sought after with a contender or two that have a potential for replacing indium tin oxide but there are certain disadvantages that have to be overcome including the toxicity levels of replacement metals. Carbon nanomaterials are being talked about. Graphite just a single atom thick and known as Graphene – a discovery that attracted the Nobel prize in 2010 is also in the picture.
We await developments as the scientists explore the magic of metallics in the explosive industry we call IT.
Leave a Reply