Ten Years To Save the Touchscreen: "Today's mobile touchscreen gadgets, along with all liquid crystal displays, rely on the unusual properties of a single material - a metallic crossbreed whose sources could be exhausted within the decade. It is not just our displays that are under threat. Solar cells and low-power LEDs, both central planks of a low-carbon energy strategy, could feel the squeeze too. No surprise, then, that companies and laboratories across the world are scrambling to find a replacement.
If this is all news to you, chances are you have never heard of the material causing all the fuss. A mixture of two metallic oxides called indium tin oxide (ITO), it is the material electronic engineers love to hate. Its principal component, indium, is a by-product of lead and zinc mining; it is difficult to come by and expensive. Once through the factory gates, ITO's brittleness and inflexibility make it a pain to work with.
And yet it has qualities that make us forgive its defects. Specifically, it is a rare example of a material that is both electrically conducting and optically transparent, which means it does not absorb photons of light."
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