A set of vivid
red, green and blue pixels based on aluminum nanostructures
are shown in a
liquid crystal display (left: schematic, right: digital photograph).
Credit: American
Chemical Society
(January 6, 2016) Whether
showing off family photos on smartphones or watching TV shows on laptops, many
people look at liquid crystal displays (LCDs) every day. LCDs are continually
being improved, but almost all currently use color technology that fades over
time. Now, a team reports in ACS Nano that using aluminum nanostructures could
provide a vivid, low-cost alternative for producing digital color.
Conventional color technology used in displays is
susceptible to photobleaching, or fading. So researchers have looked toward
aluminum nanoparticles that can display colors in electronics, thanks to a
property called “plasmon resonance.” To create plasmonic color devices,
researchers group nanostructures into arrays called pixels. Color is generated
by scattering light onto the pixels, with different arrangements creating
different colors. Aluminum plasmonic pixels are advantageous for use in
electronic displays because they are inexpensive and can be made in an
ultrasmall size, which can increase image resolution. But these pixels create
muted and dull colors. In a recent publication, Stephan Link and colleagues
developed a method that allows the red end of the color spectrum to be more
vibrant. Now, the same team reports another approach that makes the blue end of
the spectrum much more brilliant, too.