Display technologies

The hang-on-your-wall television (at an affordable price) has been awaited for a long time and nanotechnology may finally bring it into your home. Carbon nanotubes are excellent field emitters, i.e. they can be made to produce a stream of electrons, as does the electron gun in your bulky cathode ray tube TV. Several groups are promising consumer flat screens based on nanotubes by the end of 2003 or shortly after, but there are other competing technologies in the race. E-paper is another much heralded application and nanoparticles figure in several approaches being investigated, some of which promise limited commercialization in the next year or two. Soft lithography is another technology being applied in this area.