While all mobile device manufacturers are engaged in making panels for flexible, foldable, indestructible smartphones, science goes on and predicts a wooden display. It is not a hoax, but it is a real study. In the future the screens of our devices could be made of one particular fiber, transparent, resistant but made of wood. Researcher Junyong Zhu of the "Forest Products Laboratory"In collaboration with colleagues from"University of Maryland"And"University of Colorado"Developed a transparent wood material which could be used for the above purpose.
Balsa wood will be the future of smartphone screens: a team of researchers has created an invisible wood fiber to be adopted on phones
The base used is that of balsa wood, the lightest in the world but also among the most resistant as it is also used in the military field. This particular wood is subjected to an oxidizing bath at room temperature which makes it almost transparent. The effect is visible in the image below.
After this first treatment the wood comes filled with a synthetic polymer called polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) which makes it transparent like glass. But surprise of surprises: this glass that is born is not only transparent, but also a lot durable and foldable. The flexibility of the wood fibers, despite the transformation, remains the original one and consequently it can be said that it is a glass flexible to all effects.
In addition to this the transparent wooden display turns out to be very cheap to be built and therefore usable anywhere without cost problems. Researchers are currently focusing on production which, as we have described it, is very simple but in reality it is not. The next step is to find alternative and safe uses such as car glass or windows. Later we can get to smartphones.
Source | USDA
Through | PhoneArena
