Flexible Touchscreen

An ultra-thin electronic material has been developed that could revolutionize the touchscreen industry. The new conductive sheet was created by taking a well-known material and making it two-dimensional using liquid metal chemistry.

Widely used in touchscreen technologies, indium tin oxide (ITO) is transparent and conductive but extremely brittle. When heated to 200 degrees Centigrade it becomes a liquid, at which point the researchers were able to use it like a liquid metal ink to print sheets only one atom thick. The sheets have the same chemical makeup as ITO but a very different crystal structure with new optical and mechanical properties.

The result is a material 100 times thinner than typical touchscreens and pliable enough to be manufactured like a newspaper through roll-to-roll processing. It’s also more transparent, absorbing only 0.7 percent of light as compared to 5 to 10 percent with standard conductive glass. More light translates into less power and longer battery life. Best of all, the sheets are compatible with existing electronic technologies.