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Science Technology

Engineers Create World's First Transparent Transistor 35

Posted by timothy from the next-up-is-the-clear-motherboard dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Engineers at Oregon State University have created the world's first transparent transistor, a see-through electronics component that could open the door to many new products. The discovery "is a significant development in the context of transparent electronics," the scientists said in their publication, but pointed out it's too early to tell what applications may evolve. "There's no doubt it will open the door to some interesting new products and businesses, but we're not sure what all they might be." From Science Blog."
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Engineers Create World’s First Transparent Transistor More

Engineers Create World’s First Transparent Transistor

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  • Second headline (Score:3, Funny)

    by sporty ( 27564 ) on Tuesday March 25, 2003 @02:16PM (#5592444) Homepage
    Headline: Engineers Create World's First Transparent Transistor


    Moments later...

    Transparent Transistor Lost After Droping It On The Ground.

    [/joke]

    • If they were, LCD's would use less energy though/be brighter.
    • There are no transistors in an LCD display. Only very small conductive traces. The thin film of liquid quartz crystal polarizes light when you put a voltage across it. By putting a polarized sheet of plastic on top of it, you can effectively block light from passing through the display.

      That's why LCD screens need to be backlit.

      What *I* want to know is, how sensative are these devices to light?
      =Smidge=
      • I'd imagine that, even though they are transparent, the exploitation of that fact would be a little off. Especially as the devices get really really minute (which they will...what's the use of a computer consisting only of a screen if it cant display graphics?), I'd imagine that photons would be able to muck things up quite readily. Not even just the fact that photons can knock electrons around, but the fact that light could heat these babies up--not a very good thing for small traces. Unpredictable behavio

        • I'd imagine that, even though they are transparent, the exploitation of that fact would be a little off. Especially as the devices get really really minute (which they will...what's the use of a computer consisting only of a screen if it cant display graphics?), I'd imagine that photons would be able to muck things up quite readily. Not even just the fact that photons can knock electrons around, but the fact that light could heat these babies up--not a very good thing for small traces. Unpredictable behavi

      • I read here [techtarget.com]: TFT is also known as active matrix display technology (and contrasts with "passive matrix" which does not have a transistor at each pixel).

        My guess is that the transisters are in the black areas between the lighted parts. But that's just speculation. Before today, I thought they were transparent.

  • For those of you that haven't read (yet) Vernor Vinge's "Fast Times at Fairmont High", imagine a pair of contact lenses that is actually a pair of LCD screens with relatively high resolution. Who need projectors any more? Only problem is the power supply..

    Imagine now if they could sense the direction of your eyes... voila! VR made easy :-)
  • Imagine the vast possibilities wrt espionage.

    Coat the surface of furniture/walls/floor with a computer!

    Or better yet: Build an entire window that doubles as a data-recorder. Then you could arrange to retreive the info from the outdoors - eliminating the need to recover from within the building, or snaking a wire through the structure.

    According to the article, it blocks UV just like glass - eliminating that method of detection. Given the proposed applications (within windsheilds) it seems that it'll
  • So this was ALMOST a trekkies' dream ;)

    Some of the true potential of transparent transistors, Wager said, has already been visualized by Hollywood in futuristic, science fiction movies that show people working with elaborate, invisible electronic systems that so far only exist in on-screen special effects and the mind of a movie director.

    On second thought, I guess we'll be able to build HAL now.

  • "a significant development in the context of transparent electronics"
    And in other news, the empty bowl on my desk is a significant development in the context of people eating my lunch today.

  • So you're saying... (Score:3, Funny)

    by bunseki suru ( 657127 ) on Tuesday March 25, 2003 @03:29PM (#5593227)
    that I shouldn't be surprised at the lack of pictures on the site?

  • There are many potential applications of using ZnO transistors that are transparent in the visible spectrum, especially if they can be combined with optoelectronic components that permit emitted or captured light to pass through the electronics.

    But from what I recall, Si is also transparent, albeit in the IR band, so the only benefit of going to ZnO is that humans can see through them. Maybe there are other processing advantages to ZnO that permit it to work better with III-V systems?

    Not to pick nits, bu

    • Not to pick nits, but old style vacuum tubes were largely transparent.

      But if we were going to nitpick, I would use the phrase "sparsely opaque". Yes, the glass housings of vacuum tubes are transparent, but the metal cathodes and anodes inside the vacuum tubes are quite opaque to visible light.

      But from what I recall, Si is also transparent, albeit in the IR band, so the only benefit of going to ZnO is that humans can see through them. Maybe there are other processing advantages to ZnO that permit it to w

    • At one point I thought there was an idea around to revive vacuum tubes on a micron scale for some applications
      I saw on techTV not too long ago a motherboard that had little vacuum tubes on it. It was for a computer for high-end audio producing. It didn't interest me too much at the time, so I don't really know the details, other than that's another application of them.
  • Paint the car with this stuff.

    Want a new color car, or to quickly add or remove a racing stripe? Plug in the laptop and redesign the paint scheme.
  • This story opens the door to silly posts mentioning the fact that this story uses the silly phrase 'opens the door to' twice, which is a new form of the well praticed arts of duplicate submissions on /.

    And the previous line was way too long for average /. posting. Not transparent at all.

  • From here it's just a short step to transparent aluminum. Star Trek, here we come! ;-)
  • It's the same thing, right?
  • Shortly after inventing the world's first transparent transistor, scientists mislaid it due to it being hard to see and still cannot find the damn thing ;-)

    -psy
  • The article talks about using ZiO2 to make the transistors, and placing them in window glass in cars and such.

    But Zi02 is NOT transparent to UV - hence why it is used as a sunblock. Now, if you try to make a transistor out of it, it might be transparent to (and therefor uneffected by) normal visible light, but if it is absorbing UV, that is going to play merry hell with the electron/hole pairs. I'd expect it to completely HOSE the biasing of the devices.

    Also, they don't give any of the parametrics of the
    • The article talks about using ZiO2 to make the transistors

      Not to pick nits, but there is no such thing as ZiO2. Zinc oxide is ZnO2. And as far as any UV merry-hell-playing goes, there are clear substances which absorb UV, commonly referred to as glass, behind which these electronics would undoubtedly lie.

      Also, they don't give any of the parametrics of the devices - the maximum switching frequency,...

      That's because they just invented and have only first made it. They've shown that it is possible,

  • Night vision glasses (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This seems like a less bulky way of doing night vision. Maybe the electronics could now fit on a light pair of glasses? They would only need to be able to detect optical/infrared and then amplify it up to a (tunable) threshold. Maybe a little extra processing for false color or something to turn night into day.

    Is there any reason the transistors would need to run at a faster clock than 80Hz?

  • I couldn't even see the article without first yanking out all the 116 html errors in Scienceblog's webpage [w3.org]. With html like that, who needs popup ads?
  • Well, the transparent transistor is a start on a wearable computer for nudists......

    bw

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As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein

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