Apple. Photo: Getty Images

Chinese scientists claim to have found a way to make smartphone screens a million times clearer than an iPhone.

The South China Morning Post reports that by putting six different types of rare earths together and beaming lasers onto it, Chinese scientists have been able to recreate the full spectrum of visible light.

The findings are published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

Currently Apple’s retina displays have about 300 pixels per square inch. The rare earth display could reach 850 million per square inch.

But it could take a while yet before the screens end up on your smartphone, lead author of the study professor Zhang Zhongping says.

“Pixels are only one part of display technology. When pixels go down in size, it requires laser beams to become extremely fine as well,” he said.

“To generate and control laser beams at a nanoscale [level] is a problem that has not been solved.”

Current plasma and LED screens emit colours by mixing red, yellow and blue. Displaying the full colour spectrum of visible light without colour blending or filtering has been troublesome to date.

But the pixels in these rare earth screens are like little balls with six different layers which, when a laser beam is applied, can produce different colours.

“The biggest challenge is to find the right rare earth elements and control their precise composition,” Zhang said.

“A wrong element or slight disproportion will make it impossible to obtain pure white light, which is the benchmark from which to evaluate the performance of a display technology.”

So far it’s taken the scientists three years to get to the point where they’ve figured out a formula which could be potentially produced in chemical factories.

But Zhang says rare earth displays could still be quite expensive.

There’s more here.

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