Invisible electronic devices start to materialise

BOFFINS at the Northwestern University claim that invisible electronics are not vapourware and could be soon hitting the shops.

According to Nature Materials, which we get for the crossword, the boffins claim to have built transparent, high-performance transistors which can be assembled inexpensively on glass and plastic.

This makes it possible to create high quality displays on car windshields, goggles or billboards that look like they are hanging in air.

Tobin Marks, professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern, who led the research, said that boffins had been attempting to create displays powered by electronics without visible wires for years.

Marks' team combined films of the inorganic semiconductor indium oxide with layers of self-assembling organic molecules that provides insulation. The films can be fabricated at room temperature, allowing the transistors to be produced at a low cost.

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