R&D DISCOVER Vol. 23 No. 8 (August
2002)
News of science, medicine, and technology
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Computer Screens Get Ready to Roll
by Fenella Saunders
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Photograph courtesy of Heiko Jacobs/University of Minnesota
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Wouldn't it be nice if someday you could roll up your computer monitor, stuff
it in your back pocket, and then unroll it so you could browse an online
newspaper in a café or read e-mail off your palm-top computer? Heiko Jacobs, an electrical engineer now at the University
of Minnesota, has been
experimenting with flexible assemblies of LEDs that
could possibly do just that. The invention grew out of his work in the
laboratory of Harvard University
chemist George Whitesides, a pioneer in using
chemical interactions to self-assemble small structures. Recognizing that such
interactions could eliminate many tedious steps in manufacturing common
electronics, a team led by Jacobs developed a bendable LED screen that builds
itself. The researchers fabricated a pattern of copper wires onto a half- inch-
wide flexible plastic sheet, which they dipped in solder that sticks only to
metal and then dunked into a water-filled vial. Next they threw in gold-coated LEDs, sealed and heated the vial, and gave it a good shake.
The LEDs stuck only to the solder. Attaching a second
pre-wired sheet, which functions as the top electrode, created a working
display (above) in just a couple of minutes. The simplicity of the process
means such displays could be both rugged and cheap, opening a wide range of
applications. "You could have a screen wrapped around a pen that uses a
built-in miniature cell phone to constantly change the display," Jacobs
says.
RELATED WEB SITES:
"Computer Screens Get Ready to Roll." Jacobs, Heiko O., et al. "Fabrication of a Cylindrical Display
by Patterned Assembly." Science 296 (April 12, 2002): 323-325. For more, see www.ece.umn.edu/users/hjacobs
and gmwgroup.harvard.edu.