Imagine your television or computer screen coming from a container as something to be applied to a flat surface like a wall—or, screens so flexible that they can be rolled up and put in a pocket.
Those futuristic screens are closer to reality. John Protasiewicz, Case Western Reserve University professor of chemistry, plans to use funding from a special two-year, unsolicited grant for creativity from the National Science Foundation to prepare new conjugated polymers that feature novel chemical building blocks and inorganic elements. Such special plastics have potential uses in understanding how these new display devices work, and could lead to improvements in plastic display technologies.
Protasiewicz is among only a few chemists in the country this year to be singled out with a special creativity grant that acts as an extension of prior NSF-funded projects that have shown promise. According to the NSF, the creativity grants “offer the most creative investigators an extended opportunity to attack adventurous, ‘high risk’ opportunities in the same general research area.”
More here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/...50329140351.htm