BRITISH scientists have developed an unbreakable touchscreen for smartphones.

The screen is made of pioneering material which is extremely flexible and will spell an end to the misery of cracked smartphone screens — potentially saving users thousands of dollars in repairs each year.

At a fifth of the cost of current touchscreens, the new technology — which could be rolled out on mobiles as early as 2018 — could send the prices of phones, TVs and tablets tumbling.

Currently the electrodes in touch screens are made from indium tin oxide (ITO) — a rare and expensive metal.

But supplies of indium are running out and there has been a global race against time to find the next electrical conductive material that could be used by manufacturers.

Scientists working in Britain have looking at hybrid materials that are able to conduct electricity.

Using a simple and inexpensive method physicists are producing hybrid electrodes, the building blocks of touchscreen technology, from silver nanowires and graphene.

Silver nanowire — wires that are 10,000 the width of a human hair — and graphene are both good conductors of electricity.

Physicists found they were able to lay silver nanowire is such a fine film that is remained transparent.

And by combining the nanowire with graphene — a honeycomb lattice of atoms which is the thinnest material on earth — they were able to create a film which conducted electricity but was highly flexible and resistant to cracks and breaks.

At around $A14 a square metre as opposed to $A70, using silver nanowires and graphene is far cheaper than ITO.

The material has been developed by scientists at the University of Sussex in liaison with M-SOLV, a microelectronics firm based in Oxford.

Alan Dalton, Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Sussex, said: “Many of us have experienced the misfortune of dropping and breaking the screen on our phone or tablet. It is an inconvenient and expensive thing to repair.

“Scientists have long been trying to develop a phone or tablet that has a screen that will not break or shatter on impact and this new development could turn that research into a reality.

“Creating a touchscreen from nanowire and graphene is also more cost-effective, around one fifth the cost of ITO, and as they are cheaper to make it is hoped that would mean savings for customers buying smartphones and tablets on the high street.”

Scientists across the world have been trying to find an alternative to ITO but stumbled when it came to producing a material which could efficiently conduct electricity.

But Prof Dalton and his team group has shown that silver nanowires not only match the transmittances and conductivities of ITO films but exceed them.

This would make the material very attractive for touch screens. However, the group has now shown, for the first time, that this type of nanomaterial is compatible with more demanding applications such as LCD and other displays.

He said: “Silver nanowire and silver nanowire/graphene hybrids are probably the most viable alternatives to existing technologies.

“Others scientists have studied several alternative materials, but the main issue is that the majority of other materials do not effectively compete with ITO or they are too costly to produce.

“Nanowires and graphene is not only massively cheaper but it also a better conductor of electricity. We are extremely excited by the findings.”

They have published their findings title: Finite-size scaling in silver nanowire film: design considerations for practical devices, in the journal Nanoscale.

This story originally appeared on The Sun.