超薄超清柔性顯示器即將問世

As the market for smart glasses heats up, Google faces the difficult challenge of displaying top-quality visual images on a screen the size of a fingerprint.

隨着智能眼鏡市場逐步升溫，谷歌公司（Google）開始面臨一個棘手難題——如何在指紋大小的屏幕上顯示高品質的圖像。

Now researchers led by scientists at the University of Oxford in the UK believe they may have made a discovery that solves that problem.

現在，由英國牛津大學（University of Oxford）科學家領頭的研究者們相信，他們已經找到了解決這個問題的辦法。

Writing in the journal Nature Thursday, Harish Bhaskaran, Peiman Hosseini and C. David Wright say they have found a way to create pixels just a few hundred nanometers across that could one day lead to high-resolution, low-energy and flexible displays. They could be used in smart glasses as well as synthetic retinas, smart contact lenses and foldable screens.

上週四《自然》雜誌（Nature）發表了一篇論文。哈利什o巴斯卡仁、培曼o侯賽尼和C.大衛o賴特在文中稱，他們已經找到一種方法，可以製造出只有幾百納米的單個像素點，今後就能製造高分辨率、低能耗且可摺疊的顯示器。這種顯示器可以用於製造智能眼鏡、人工視網膜、智能隱形眼鏡和可摺疊屏幕。

“Current microdisplay technologies based on liquid crystals, microelectromechanical systems and organic light-emitting diodes are attracting considerable attention because of a growing interest in wearable technology,” the authors wrote in the paper published Thursday.

作者在這篇論文中稱：“由於市場對可穿戴技術的興趣日益濃厚，目前基於液晶、微機電機械系統和有機發光二極管的微顯示技術正備受關注。”

“Key requirements for such applications are high resolutions, high speed and low power consumption, all of which are met by the technology described here.”

“這類應用的關鍵要求是高分辨率、高速度和低能耗，這些都能通過本文闡述的技術獲得解決。”

Essentially, the researchers have come up with a novel use for phase-change materials, which has been around for decades. They have long been used to store data, especially on rewriteable CDs and DVDs. But until now no one had figured out how to tap into their display potential.

實際上，這些研究者所開發的是對相變材料的全新運用方法。這種材料問世幾十年了，長期以來一直用於存儲數據，主要用於製造可擦寫CD和DVD。不過迄今爲止還沒人想出如何開發這種材料潛在的顯示性能。

Bhaskaran said he was initially attracted to the material because it was active both optically and electronically. But it wasn’t until he and his colleagues started working with it in the lab that they realized that its optical properties far outperformed what is available on the market today — a resolution that is 50 times better.

巴斯卡仁稱，最初之所以被這種材料吸引是因爲，它的光電特性都很活躍。而直到他和同事開始在實驗室對它開展研究時才發現，它的光學性能遠超過如今市場上的各種材料——分辨率要高50倍。

“The first thing we demonstrated is you can actually get extremely high resolution pixels,” Bhaskaran said. “In our case, the smallest pixels we’ve shown are 100 nanometers or less. Each of those images are 70 microns across, which is roughly the diameter of a human hair.”

巴斯卡仁說：“我們首先發現，能獲得超高的分辨率像素點。在我們的研究中，最小的像素點只有100納米，甚至更小。這樣，每幅圖像就只有70微米寬，大概相當於頭髮絲的直徑。”

The researchers have filed a patent on their product and are in discussions with an unnamed firm that specializes liquid crystal display applications, Bhaskaran said. They also have received a grant of $240,000 to develop a prototype from Isis Innovation, which helps Oxford researchers commercialize their discoveries.

巴斯卡仁稱，他們已爲自己的產品申請了專利，正在與一家專業生產液晶顯示設備、不便透露名字的公司洽談合作。他們還從Isis Innovation（牛津大學的技術商業化公司——譯註）獲得了24萬美元用於開發原型產品。後者致力於幫助牛津大學的科研人員將研究成果商業化。

Richard Holliday, a technology transfer team leader at Isis, said that the discovery could lead to very “disruptive display technology” if the researchers can find the right use for it. One area worth exploring, he said, is virtual reality gaming.

Isis公司的技術轉移團隊主管理查德o霍利迪表示，如果這些研究人員能爲自己的產品找到合適的用途，這項發現將催生非常“具有顛覆性的顯示技術”。其中一個很值得探索的領域就是虛擬現實遊戲。

“The display market is huge. It’s predicted to be $165 billion in 2017,” Holliday said. “At the moment, we are looking at which segments of that market would benefit most from the unique characteristics this technology has got. One of the most exciting is projection-based displays where you project a small display up into a larger area. Therefore, you need high resolution otherwise you end up with a highly pixilated-type display.”

他說：“顯示市場規模巨大。據估計，到2017年這個市場的規模將達1650億美元。目前，我們正在研究其中哪個細分市場能最大程度地從這項技術的特性中獲益。最激動人心的一個領域就是投影類顯示設備，這種設備可將尺寸較小的畫面投射到更大面積的區域上。因此，必須要有極高的分辨率才行，否則只會得到嚴重失真的投影圖像。”

Along with its high resolution, Hosseini said another attractive aspect of the technology is that uses much less energy.

除了高分辨率之外，侯賽尼表示這項技術另一個極富吸引力的特性就是能耗極低。

“One of the advantages of our design is that, unlike most conventional LCD screens, there would be no need to constantly refresh all pixels,” he said. You would only have to refresh those pixels that actually change (static pixels remain as they were). This means that any display based on this technology would have extremely low energy consumption.”

他說：“我們這個設計方案的一個優勢在於，和大多數傳統液晶屏幕不同，它不需要不斷刷新所有像素點。只需要刷新那些確實發生變化（靜止像素則保留原樣）的像素就可以了。它意味着，基於這一技術的所有顯示器的能耗都會極低。”

When asked about the new technology’s commercial merits, Google GOOG -0.86% said they had “nothing to add here.”

當被問及這項新技術的商業優勢時，谷歌公司表示“沒有什麼可補充的”。