‘Metasurfaces’ could spark a generation of significantly thinner and cheaper flat panels

Researchers have developed a proof of concept technology that could pave the way for next-generation displays beyond current LCDs and LEDs, allowing screens and electronics to become thinner, has a higher resolution and is much more energy efficient.

A research team at Nottingham Trent University, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales Canberra in Australia has designed electrically tunable arrays of nanoparticles known as “supersurfaces”, which can yield significant benefits over current liquid crystal displays.

Today’s monitor market offers many options, each with its pros and cons. However, factors including manufacturing cost, lifespan, and energy consumption have made liquid crystal technology the dominant and most common technology for displays such as TVs and monitors.

The liquid crystal cells are responsible for turning the transmitted light on and off and are backlit, with polarizing filters in front and behind the pixels. They determine the size of pixels—resolution—and play an important role in managing your device’s power consumption.

The newly designed metasurface cells—with extraordinary tunability and light scattering properties—will replace the liquid crystal layer and eliminate the need for polarizers, which are responsible for large amounts of intensity. light levels and energy usage wasted in the display.

Supersurface is 100 times thinner than a liquid crystal cell, provides 10 times higher resolution and consumes 50% less energy.

As part of the study, the team demonstrated that pixels can be electrically programmed, and that light can be switched almost 20 times faster than the human aversion reaction time by varying heat. degree of the material.

The researchers believe their technology is compatible with modern electronic displays and fills a technological gap for an tunable supersurface capable of efficiently switching light at high frequencies.

Project leader Mohsen Rahmani, Professor of Engineering at Nottingham Trent, said: “We have paved the way to breaking down the technological barrier by replacing the liquid crystal layer in current displays with a supersurface, allowing we make affordable flat panel monitors with no liquid crystals”. The University’s School of Science and Technology and a member of the Royal Wolfson Society.

“The most important metrics for flat panel displays are pixel size and resolution, weight and power consumption. We’ve addressed each of these issues with our super display concept,” he said.

“Most importantly, our new technology can dramatically reduce energy consumption—this is great news given the number of monitors and TVs used in homes and businesses every day. We believe it’s time for LCD and LED screens to be phased out in a similar way to cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs in the past 10 to 20 years.”

Dragomir Neshev, Director of the ARC Center of Excellence in Switched Super Optical Systems (TMOS) and Professor of Physics at the Australian National University, said: “The capabilities of conventional displays have reached their peak. and is unlikely to be significantly improved in the future due to many limitations.Today, there is a search for fully solid-state flat panel display technology with high resolution and fast refresh rate. design and develop metasurface pixels that could be ideal for the next generation display.

“Unlike liquid crystals, our pixels do not require polarized lights to work, which would halve the screen’ energy consumption.”

Khosro Zangeeh Kamali, PhD. Scholar at the Australian National University and first author of the study, said: “Supersurfaces have been shown to exhibit exceptional optical behavior. However, inventing an efficient way to controlling them is still a difficult research topic. We have proposed electrically programmable silicon superfaces, a flexible platform for programmable meta-interfaces.”

Dr. Lei Xu, a team member from Nottingham Trent University, said “There are many opportunities for further improvement by using artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to design and realize even smaller, thinner, and more efficient super surface display.”

Professor Andrey Miroshnichenko, team member from the University of New South Wales, Canberra, said: “Our pixels are made of silicon, which offers a long life compared to the organic materials required for selections. other existing alternatives. Furthermore, silicon is widely available, CMOS compatible with mature technology and cheap to manufacture.”

He concluded that it is hoped that this development can create a leading technology in the new flat panel. Work reported in the journal Light: Science & Applications.