Tech Shout!

Researchers at the Oregon State University (OSU) have developed what according to them is the world’s very first ‘completely transparent’ in-built circuit using inorganic substances. The transparent transistor technology will transform electronics, enabling circuitry to be incorporated into items like glasses, windows, car windscreens and bottles. Boffins claimed that this will further enhance LCD technology.

However, the OSU team said they have to work on leveling the technology and building p-channel transistor devices, required not only to decrease the power consumption but to allow it to process both analogue and digital information. Luckily, they described these efforts as “very feasible”.

OSU electrical engineering professor John Wager said, “We might be able to bring transparent integrated circuits to widespread use in five years or so, a process that took a couple of decades in the early evolution of conventional electronics.”

OSU’s test chip comprises of a five-stage ring oscillator. It was made out of indium gallium oxide using conventional photolithography techniques, the processes used to make most of the world’s silicon chips, Wager said.

The scientists claim that the see-through chips will be very cheap to make, even to the point to replacing products that don’t need to be transparent. The scientists raised the view of disposable devices made from transparent chips, though they didn’t address the environmental impact of such a shift.

Still, the possibility for building circuitry into transparent media is huge, if the team can take the technology further along the path to commercialisation. In that they’ll have the help of HP, which earlier this year licensed the rights to bring the technique to market.