Science News Archive

Furry Displays

You may remember at school someone being charged up by a Van de Graaf generator, and their hair standing on end because all the hairs now repel each other.

Engineers at Phillips may have come up with a way of using this principle to make a display out of fabric. The idea is to make a hairy fabric with the hairs a different colour to the base fabric. If the hairs are lying down all you can see is the hair colour. However if you charge them up and make them stand up, you are looking at them end on so you can see the different coloured fabric underneath. If a piece of fabric were split up into pixels and wired up appropriately you would have a furry display.

29th Apr 2007