Visual Displays Made Up Of Air And Water Now Possible [Video]

Researchers in Cambridge (with a team from Nokia Research Center Cambridge) have come up with a way by which water and air could be employed to produce visual displays & also save information. The method makes use of the water-repellent properties (superhydrophobic) of a material using a microscopic structure prompted by a lotus leaf that captures a thin layer of air in middle of the surface of the material and any water in contact with it. The surface structure is so manufactured that the air can be confined in two distinct ways, and air and water could then be utilized to save information in a very binary-like way.

The researchers have formulated a special nozzle to modify the pressure on the surface, thus modifying the way the air is trapped, operating it between tiny micro-posts developed on the material and even more smaller nano-filaments developed on the posts. As a visual difference exists between the two states, the technology can even be utilized to generate images by operating the nozzle over the surface and sketching with pixel-like accurate represention. The material doesn't get affected in the process.

Watch how it works here:

<object width="640" height="360" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="https://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="; /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed width="640" height="360" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="; allowFullScreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" /></object>

via: DiscoveryNews