Monitors

By Craig Stephenson

With technological innovations continually decreasing manufacturing costs, consumers have grown accustomed to the convenience of touch-screen products in all aspects of life. They can travel as phones and video games or be stationary machines for placing orders and withdrawing money. Each of these roles can be matched to one of the many processes that create touch-screens. Some respond when surface contact initiates a charge of electricity at that location. Others require a tiny network of infrared lasers along the screen, able to define exactly where their beams are disrupted. Further options include those capable of registering the mechanical properties of a touch, which disturbs the surface upon impact.

Liquid crystal display, known as LCD, has become a popular technology in the creation of computer monitors and other display systems. The name is derived from its liquid crystal material, which lies between two pieces of polarized glass. Electrical currents then align the crystals such that only certain amounts of light pass through to produce the images viewed on screen. LCDs are slim, lightweight and consume little power, but they have a low contrast ratio and limited viewing angle.

CRTs are classic monitors that maintain high performance marks in the face of newer developments. As the name suggests, cathode ray tubes supply the means for these displays to function. The cathode, a heated filament, generates an electron ray that energizes colored pixels on the other side of a tube. Made of phosphor, the pixels cover the inside of the monitor screen and materialize as pictures when struck by the electrons. With this process, CRTs achieve high quality images comparable to other monitors, especially in contrast, color, and response time. Nonetheless, they are hampered by their size, weight, and energy demands.

For larger screens and a high level of clarity, consumers often turn to plasma display panels. PDPs are highly successful in providing exceptional viewing angles, contrast ratios, and response times. However, they are costly and usually cannot be commercially produced at sizes smaller than 32 inches. Plasma screens contain hundreds of thousands of cells between two glass plates. Each cell is coated with phosphor for color and filled with a mixture of noble gases that, when given a current, transforms into light-emitting plasma.

One example of monitor technology still under development is SED, which stands for surface-conduction electron-emitter display. They contain thousands of tiny cathode ray tubes, each one representing a single sub-pixel. Though not yet economically viable, SEDs combine the benefits of CRTs with the compact size of LCDs while using less energy.

Organic light-emitting diodes, called OLEDs, require no backlight and extremely little power, allowing for ultra-thin designs. To function, voltage is applied to a film of conductive organic compounds that is printed onto suitable material under the monitor's surface. Due to their reliance on organic matter, OLEDs have somewhat limited lifespans.

Even with such a plethora of monitor types, it is sometime necessary to combine two or more of them in order to achieve a sufficient display area. With the proper video adapter and cables, multiple monitors can be used to view especially large items or simply to open more than one program at once so that two sources of information can be accessed simultaneously.

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