Ubiquity looms :)

Graphene, the wonder material, has a new trick up it's sleeve, touchscreens.

New research published today in the journal Advanced Functional Materials suggests that graphene-treated nanowires could soon replace current touchscreen technology, significantly reducing production costs and allowing for more affordable, flexible displays.

The majority of today's touchscreen devices, such as tablets and smartphones are made using indium tin oxide (ITO) which is both expensive and inflexible. Researchers from the University of Surrey and AMBER, the materials science centre based at Trinity College Dublin have now demonstrated how graphene-treated nanowires can be used to produce flexible touchscreens at a fraction of the current cost.

Using a simple, scalable and inexpensive method the researchers produced hybrid electrodes, the building blocks of touchscreen technology, from silver nanowires and graphene.

Dr Alan Dalton from the University of Surrey said, "The growing market in devices such as wearable technology and bendable smart displays poses a challenge to manufacturers. They want to offer consumers flexible, touchscreen technology but at an affordable and realistic price. At the moment, this market is severely limited in the materials to hand, which are both very expensive to make and designed for rigid, flat devices."

Boggles the mind, doesn't it. :)

This is what's coming, courtesy graphene, the business end of pencils us rubes have been using since the 1500s.