fantastic plastic

From the press release:

Sumitomo Chemical Company (Sumitomo Chemical) and Cambridge Display Technology (NASDAQ: OLED) (CDT) today jointly announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement whereby Sumitomo Chemical will acquire CDT, a developer of technologies based on polymer organic light emitting diodes (P-OLEDs). Under the merger agreement, Sumitomo Chemical will acquire all outstanding shares of CDT common stock at a price of $12 per share in cash, for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $285 million. The merger consideration represents a 107 percent premium over CDT’s 90-day average closing share price and a 95 percent premium over CDT’s closing share price of $6.15 on July 30.

CDT and Sumitomo Chemical have been working together under the Sumation joint venture since 2005.

The NewScientist is reporting on colloidal photonic crystals consisting of dispersions of magnetic iron oxide particles with a charged surface coating, developed by Yadong Yin and colleagues at the Department of Chemistry at University of California, Riverside.
The charged particles repel each other but their packing can be influenced by applying a magnetic field. Tuning the spacing of the particles in the colloidal crystal, by varying the magnetic field strength, changes the wavelength of the reflected light.

The crystal reflects brilliant colours from red to violet as the magnetic field strength increases (see image, right). But, when the field is switched off, the crystal reverts back to its original brownish colour.

“This is the first report of a photonic crystal that is fully tuneable in the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum,” says Yin.
“We see applications in various areas, including sensors, optical switches and flexible colour displays,” he told New Scientist. “For example, the system can be used to make extra-large displays or posters to replace expensive LCD monitors. And, because the colour is based on reflection, it is better for outdoor applications than current LCD displays that perform poorly in direct sunlight.”

The work was reported in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.