IBM gives new Flat Panel Display/LCD Breakthrough
  05/03/2001 6:07:40 AM MDT Albuquerque, Nm
  By Dustin D. Brand; Owner AMO

Less than a week ago it was carbon nanotubes, now it's new LCD technology.   SCIENTISTS AT IBM have found a new way to align crystal molecules inside flat-panel LCDs (liquid crystal displays), which will provide higher screen quality as well as large savings for LCD manufacturers, IBM said in a statement today.

  IBM said it will begin full production of LCD screens using the new technique by the end of this year, and may license the patented technology to other manufacturers.

  The principle -- atomic beam alignment -- will replace an effect first discovered 95 years ago, when it was noted that rubbing a polymer substrate with a velvet cloth caused liquid crystals deposited on the substrate to align with the rubbed traces.

  Without alignment of the crystals, useable LCDs cannot be built, so all LCD manufacturers have been forced to use the rubbing technique for the last 20 years to build notebook computer and mobile phone displays.

  Replacing rubbing by the non-contact atomic beam method has been the most asked-for scientific improvement in the LCD manufacturing world, according to IBM. Among other disadvantages, the rubbing process is not completely understood scientifically, making it difficult to improve the technology or solve difficulties, IBM said.

  IBM's new method starts by depositing a thin layer of diamond-like carbon instead of using a polymer substrate. Then, an ion gun shoots atoms at an angle, pushing aside many of the surface carbon atoms. When the rod-shaped liquid crystal molecules are added, one end of each molecule attaches to an exposed carbon atom, resulting in the alignment of all the liquid crystal molecules in the direction of the rows. There we go again with another Carbon atom breakthrough from IBM. Yes, this is what I've been talking about in FPD's for the last 6 months, this is sure to drop the price of those FPD's you now see costing $15,000 called "Plasma" displays. Now that LCD's can be made cheaper, faster, and more reliably, prices for these LCD displays in all sizes will drop yet once again.

  This LCD breakthrough is the second technical advance announced recently by IBM. Please read the below "Nanotechnology" where it announced it had built the world's first array of transistors out of carbon nanotubes.

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