Researchers from Nottingham Trent University, the Australian National University, and the University of New South Wales Canberra have developed a proof of concept technology that has the potential to disrupt the monitor, display, and TV industries worth over $100 billion.
The researchers have proposed using metasurfaces, electrically tunable arrays of nanoparticles, instead of traditional liquid crystal cells in these devices. According to the researchers, this new technology could provide substantial advantages over current liquid crystal displays.
Metasurfaces are considerably smaller in size, up to 10 times smaller than liquid crystal cells, resulting in significantly smaller pixel pitches and potentially much higher pixel densities. This tight grouping of pixels could lead to more seamless and hyper-realistic graphics, making it an attractive innovation for creative professionals, particularly those working on photo editing monitors.
The new technology also boasts the ability to achieve much higher refresh rates. Current displays have a refresh rate limit of around 13ms or 78 Hz, which is the detection limit of the human eye. However, displays utilizing metasurfaces have the potential to achieve refresh rates exceeding 1000 Hz, significantly higher than monitors available commercially.
The successful adoption of this new technology will depend on how readily the current LCD panel production lines can adapt to it.
TLDR: Pixels get a lot smaller, denser pixels allowing more realistic graphics, especially for creative professionals and gaming. Monitors might arrive in 5 years.
