Researchers develop copper nanowires for field-emission displays

It's been a little while since we've heard of any significant progress in field-emission displays, but a group of researchers at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign now seem to be shaking things up a bit, with them touting new copper nanowires that could one day be used for ultra-thin FED screens. Specifically, the copper nanowires developed by Kyekyoon Kim and Hyungsoo Choi are between 70 nanometers and 250 nanometers wide, and can be "grown" on various surfaces including silicon, glass, metal, and plastic. As Technology Review reports, in the case of field-emission displays, the nanowires would be used to fire electrons at phosphor particles on a screen to light them up. That process would result in displays that are not only thinner than traditional flat-panel displays, but brighter and more energy-efficient as well -- assuming they ever find their way out of the lab, that is.

[Jagannath A @ May 6th 2008 2:19PM]

"... fire electrons at phosphor particles on a screen to light them up..."

good'ol tech of CRT.. though the guns have changed ;)

[Mam00th @ May 6th 2008 2:24PM]

I want my laser tv...

[Kizorblade @ May 6th 2008 2:34PM]

Is it me or was "Matrix" the first thing that popped into your mind when you saw the picture of the letters?

[Mike Bertolino @ May 6th 2008 2:41PM]

cheaper?

[blomster @ May 6th 2008 2:43PM]

Sounds a little like SEDs, which turned out to be vaporware.

[sean @ May 6th 2008 2:44PM]

Can someone tell me what the difference between FED and SED is?

[Ayle @ May 6th 2008 3:55PM]

SED is a derivative of FED.It is like having a crt in each pixel, instead of the crystal so you get all the benefits of crt: color, contrast, latency, etc in a lcd type packaging.

[Matt @ May 6th 2008 2:45PM]

I-L-L!

[Brent @ May 6th 2008 3:01PM]

I-N-I!

[Farris @ May 6th 2008 3:05PM]

C-N-N!

[HyperHacker @ May 6th 2008 7:00PM]

M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E!

[Jim @ May 6th 2008 3:12PM]

SED = Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display
FED = Field-Emission Display

[bfountai @ May 6th 2008 5:06PM]

This is useless until they invent the nano soldering gun.

[rayw @ May 6th 2008 6:58PM]

"and can be "grown" on various surfaces including silicon, glass, metal, and plastic" (cut-and-paste-from-above)

[phanbouy @ May 6th 2008 7:01PM]

how immoral

[SheldonG @ May 7th 2008 1:10AM]

I'd be worried about X-ray Radiation with this type of technology. But due to the low voltages involved it may not even be a factor