Sunscreen for your computer

I found another cool article just recently that was talking about how zinc oxide, which is used in sunscreen, and how it could be used to make transparent transistors. The transistors used in todays computers have material that blocks light. If they use zinc oxide instead then they can eliminate the need for light blocking material, which will make computers have much brighter, and more detailed images. There is a lot of other cool benefits from this also, so go and read the actual article at http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/0....ap/index.html



Chris

im not sure if a misread this or not, but...

so your saying, that by making the *transistors* (ie; things on the motherboard - base, collector, emmiter) transparent, will somehow improve the image generated by a standard CRT/TFT moniter? i fail to see the logic.

cheers,

Zenith

Zenith:

You're misreading it, but it's not your fault... I did the same when I first read schoolsucks779s post, it's kinda grabbing points from through-out the article and throwing them together. The article isn't refering to the transistors in your PC (MoBo and various daughter cards)... It's refering to the TFTs themselves. TFT stands for Thin Film Transistors, which are used in LCD Displays. Now this was briefly explained to me by an electronics technician earlier, so I hope I get this right, if not I'm sure someone will correct me.

Active Matrix LCDs use TNs (Twisted Nematics). They are twisted liquid crystals.. however when current is applied, they untwist and allow light to pass threw. Infront of the TNs we have a glass substrate and a colour filter, broken down into your RGB pixels in a grid form. When a certain pixel is to light up that row is switched on (ground) and current is sent down the column (positive). TFTs (switching transistors and capacitors) are located behind the TNs infront of another glass substrate and the capacitors will hold a charge until the next refresh, the switching transistors will perform boolean logic functions. Now as far as I know these TFTs are just what their name says.. Thin Films... I've never actually seen one, so my speculation starts here... I would assume based on what I've been told, and what that article says that currently TFTs are more than likely similar to either an actual peice of film or else a sheet of wax paper, that is to say they are translucent, that is.. there's some distortion.... Now if you can make these TFTs perfectly transparent and allow a clear image to pass threw them, the light will not distort and your picture will be brighter (no light diffusion) and clearer.


I hope this helps to clear it up a little bit, if I've made mistakes (which is quite possible) feel free to let me know..

ah, my bad. i completely forgot 'T' was for transistor in TFT.