Motorola Labs has announced exciting results from its carbon nanotechnology research.

Dubbed "nano emissive display" (NED), the technology enables manufacturers to design large flat panel displays that exceed the image quality characteristics of plasma and LCD screens at a lower cost.

 

Carbon nanotubes, or CNTs, are tubes of carbon atoms less than a nanometer - one billionth of a meter - in diameter. CNTs possess a combination of unique properties that make them highly programmable for a variety of purposes, including flat panel displays.

 

Motorola developed a process to grow CNTs at low temperatures. This capability is important because the commercial material with which they must bond, such as glass or transistors, are heat sensitive.

 

The ability to place CNTs directly on a substrate while controlling their spacing, size, and length, provides a high quality image with optimized electron emissions, brightness, color purity and resolution for flat panel displays. Other attempts in this field utilize a "paste" or "print" method of applying CNTs, which to date, have not been able to provide the same level of display image quality, or the potential cost savings of Motorola's NED process.