A Modernized Polarizing Filter for Smart Screens

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, UT, USA. A more dynamic polarizing filter is being developed by a team of engineers. It can help with longer battery life for your mobile phones and can also produce a better outcome for pictures taken under low lighting. When a normal polarizer is used, it blocks a significant amount of light. Therefore, a lot of energy is consumed. The development of this innovation is inevitable, especially in digital photography and LCD displays.

When a polarized filter is used to take pictures, removing glare is the target. However, almost 60-70 percent of light is also wasted by most polarizers. It only permits half of the light to be used which results in darker photos. Same goes for LCD displays on devices such as smartphones and tablets, which have two polarizers. Once you adjust to a brighter display, the battery will most likely be used up faster, since polarizers waste most of the light.

With the new polarizer, most of the light is converted to the polarized state.The team that developed this was headed by Rajesh Menon, an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Utah. They developed a filter by etching a silicon wafer with nanoscale pillars and holes utilizing a focused gallium-ion beam. To test their theory, they used a 20 by 20 micrometer polarizer and applied infrared light.

They would like to achieve 100% of light to pass through in the near future. Right now, they are able to make 74% of the light through. According to the researchers, they are going to create a larger filter at the same time which is going to be more cost-effective to mass-produce. Hopefully, this great invention would be available on the market within 10 years.

image courtesy of pixabay.com