Research will allow displays to show every color

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The current generation of video devices when it comes to the number of colors they can reproduce are limited by the use of three primary components: Red, Green and Blue (RGB). While their combination lets us achieve brilliant results in terms of image quality with this system we will never be able to recreate all the colors present in the real world.

Swiss researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich however may have found a system to draw closer to this result. While they cannot promise to be able to represent all the colors they say that their technology is a lot closer than the actual generation of devices.

The Swiss team is able to achieve this by using electrically tuneable diffraction gratings made of flexible polymer. The latter often is used in the robotics field and for this reason the gratings are said to be controlled by robotic muscles.

If I understood how it works the color is originated by hitting the diffraction grating with pure white light. Then by using different voltages and therefore expanding or contracting the grating the desired color is directed toward a hole in front of the grating. Repeat this for the number of pixel in this display and we should see a notable difference with the actual displays.

Reading it as I wrote it sound a very simple idea so either I understood nothing about it or this is really a great innovation. Probably both are true and in the future we will really use this technology. For the moment the team has a working prototype of 400 gratings side by side that promises great things.

Let’s hope to have soon some updates about how the research is going and how much the display manufacturers are interested. As for me I cannot wait to see a real next generation device. What about you?