Thin, fast, and flexible

Amorphous silicon has long been the king of flat panel displays. It began its reign in PC monitors and high-definition TV, then conquered netbooks, e-readers, and smartphones. No other substance was as suitable for the thin-film transistors that sit behind a display´s hundreds of thousands of pixels, turning each one on or off. But soon the dominion of amorphous silicon will pass, because it can´t provide what coming generations of electronic products will require. For one thing, it isn´t fast enough. Next-generation LCD TVs will be refreshed at least 240 times a second, which is two to four times as quick as today´s versions; that way, they´ll provide sharper fast-action sports and movies. Three-dimensional displays will need refresh rates twice again as high, to provide all that fast-motion goodness to each eye.