Richard Matarazzo

IMA 505

Prof. Aeivoli

LCD DISPLAYS

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ In 1888 Austrian botanist Fredrich Remitzer observed the two-melting points phenomenon in a material that we know was cholesteryl benzoate. After making his discovery he conferred with a famous crystallographer in Prague, Van Zepharovich. His advice to Remitzer was to get in touch with German physicist Otto Lehmann concerning the nature of these phase transitions. This began the first investigations into liquid crystals, eventually leading to fundamental understandings of the nature of this new phase of matter. It was in 1889 the term ãLiquid Crystalä is first coined by Otto Lehmann. In the 1930s European laboratory scientists came to understand the physics and chemistry of liquid crystals. The was virtually no research carried out on this topic during during the period of 1945 to 1958 which led scientists to believe that there was much to be learned until in 1958 an American chemist Glenn Brown published an article in Chemical Reviews on the liquid crystal phase which seemed to spark an international resurgence in liquid crystal research.

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In 1968 we see RCA produce the first experimental LCD at RCAâs David Sarnoff Research Center headed by George Heilmeier.Ê In 1970 Nunzio Luce, Louis Zanom, George Graham, and Joel Goldmacher left RCA and joined Optel Corporation, where they developed the first LCD display for commercial purposes, including the digital watch display.

During the 1970âs we began to see the first gadgets, all of them Japanese, to feature LCDs. Seiko-Epson mounted them in digital watches, Casio and Sharp in calculators and in the 1980s the Japanese added word processors.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ James Firgeson from Kent State invented an improved display based on the twisted nematic field effect in 1969. After leaving Kent State he formed ILIXCO Corporation to manufacture his new display. The first LCD watch with an ILIXCO display was marketed by Gruen. The field effect display is currently the most frequently found in todays LCD products.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ In 1991 IBM released a 10.4-inch color TFT-LCD, which was caoable of 640X480 dot VGA display in there notebook PCs. In late 1996, Fujitsu unveiled a TFT-LCD panel that used a new type of liquid crystal. Fujitsu has used this material from mid-1970s onward. By 1999 a number of leading manufacturers had an 18.1 inch TFT display model on the market capable of a native resolution of 1280X1024.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ In the year 2000 IBM releases a prototype LCD based on IBMs Roetntgen technology offering a new class of resolution catergorized as quad SXGA (Super eXtended Graphics Array). In the same year we see a sort of push not only to improve on LCD display but a push to produce an even better display.

In England Cambridge Display Technologies developed LEP displays. LEP stands for (Light Emitting Polymer). It is a fancy term for an ultra-thin plastic or glass display that works with natural light instead of power-hungry backlighting found in todays LCD technology. It was also in the year 2000 that Kodak/Sanyo pioneered and patented Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED) also known as ãElectronic Paperä.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ With these new displays still being researched and developed the present and future status remains a question for LCD displays. When LCD display first came out it was predicted that they would replace the CRT monitors. According to the research firm Display Search it is estimated that worldwide shipments of LCD monitors are up 131% year over year. Even at this rate LCD displays seem popular only in selected industries. One industry in particular is the financial community, because of the limited space that they take up it allows traders to view more information on more screens. An industry that has not accepted LCD displays for the most part is the graphics community which is a very large buyer of monitors. The main reason is because graphic designers say even though LCDs have a very crisp image quality, the colors on an LCD donât always look the same when printed. Experts say that this poor color saturation is a problem limited to early LCDs, and new displays have color accuracy on par with CRTs. Another reason that LCD displays have not become the popular brand is the cost issues. We have seem a dramatic price drop in displays ranging from 14 to 15 inch monitors but larger size screens like 17 to 21 inch are still quite expensive compared to CRT monitors the same size. Experts do say that ãLCDs are the way of the future, and once costs come down, CRT monitors will become obsolete.ä

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Its is still very hard to say what the future holds for LCD displays due to many issues that still linger and the new technologies being developed towards more advanced display systems. We see in today movies the technology that is being represented for the future. Minority Report is an example of a movie that depicts many different forms of display media, (many on the lines of ãelectronic paperä theory that is being developed today). Experts are saying that LCD displays are going to be the industry standard but my belief is that LCD display will become one of many display options and may even be considered obsolete if and when these new technologies are released onto the public.

LINKS

www.howstuffworks.com/lcd.htm

http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefan/liquid-crystals/node10.html

http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefan/liquid-crystals/node7.html

www.si.edu/lemelson/Quartz/inventors/liquid.html

www.onepc.net/index.php?view=docs&doc_id=107

http://komar.cs.stthomas.edu/qm425/01s/Tollefsrud2.htm

http://dutch.phys.strath.ac.uk/CommPhys2002Exam/David_Wright/03-intro.htm

http://dutch.phys.strath.ac.uk/CommPhys2002Exam/David_Wright/12-glossary.htm

http://dutch.phys.strath.ac.uk/CommPhys2002Exam/David_Wright/13-links.htm

http://dutch.phys.strath.ac.uk/CommPhys2002Exam/David_Wright/10-lcd-detail.htm

http://146.201.224.61/movies/crystals/index.html

http://www.pctechguide.com/07panels.htm

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