Offices, homes and buildings with windows that display the view from another place or world are getting closer to becoming a reality.

Researchers from South Korea have developed liquid crystal technology that can alter between a transparent and an opaque state.

Their work, when fully developed, may allow for any window to be equipped with the technology, allowing it to be turned into a display or become see-through when required.

When the system is not being used, it is designed to let light pass through it, so the window can function normally.

Therefore the technology, which has been created by researchers at Pusan National University, South Korea, only needs to be powered when an opaque monitor-like view is needed.

It could be the technology that finally make’s Back to the Future’s Scene Screen a reality, allowing you to hide rubbish weather with a delightful tropical vista.

To test the system, the researchers placed a cell onto a piece of paper with their university’s logo printed on it.

When the set-up is in its opaque stage, the background is black and the logo can’t be seen.

The tech, which has been outlined in the peer-reviewed AIP Advances journal, works by scattering light, which is then absorbed by dyes introduced by the researchers.

Light shutters then utilise electrodes around the liquid crystals to move the light.

When an electric field is passed through the electrodes the axes of the dye molecules are aligned with the ongoing light which allows them to absorb and scarred it.

This process effectively makes the light coming at the screen from behind ineffective – and allows the display to be opaque.

In the future, the researchers are hoping to enhance the technology so that it is uses less energy.

At present the technology requires power when the states are being maintained, but the researchers hope they will be able to make the technology require power when the states are being switched.

If the scientists are successful in creating a set-up that can be used on a building’s windows then it will be competing with other technologies that are looking to capitalise on the area.

In one instance another set of researchers have created a way to allow windows to collect solar energy.

The scientists from Michigan State University developed organic molecules that are able to take in waves of sunlight that are not visible to the human eye.