Vaporware: Extremely Large Scale Video Display

The next generation video display is very low cost and very easy to scale from the very tiny 1 inch size to the very large arena size. There are really only three parts to this display and only one that can be considered new technology.

The new part is a special inert gas with very localized fluorescence properties when excited at a certain level of energy but has a relatively slow decay time after the energy is removed due to cascading excitement passed from one molecule to another. In simple terms this means when we apply enough energy to one spot in a big room full of this gas, that one spot will start to glow. The more energy we apply, the larger the spot until eventually the whole room will be full of light. This one discovery has allowed some interesting lighting applications where a flat sheet of plastic with a thin layer of this gas is applied to ceilings and electrically charged in a way similar to florescent lights. The whole room receives soft light with no clear source and no harsh shadows. But that is just one of many side applications.

The second component is a breakthrough low cost solid state laser. The solid state laser is not new, but high power lasers that cost fractions of a cent in small quantities is something new. This allows dense array of these lasers to be packed into these new display devices without adding significantly to the end cost. These lasers are simply arranged along two sides of the display and tuned to only emit a fraction of the power required to excite the gas. Wherever two or more beams intersect, the gas becomes excited and begins fluorescence and a display pixel is formed. An interesting new application of this technology is to either add more layers of arrays or to use lasers with beam aiming ability to create a Z axis and a very realistic way to communicate depth to the viewer. The average retail cost is under $100 for display sizes up to three feet diagonal and this is driving an adoption rate never before seen in this industry.

There are many new applications for this design that were not possible before. Since the gas is totally clear in the natural state, this technology can be used in windows of nearly any size or shape. The direct result is that all retail stores around the world can have instantly updated motion displays of their latest sales or merchandise using live models and dynamic signage.

One of the more interesting applications is in the area of home security. Every window in the house can give the appearance of people and activity even when the home owner is on vacation. Office buildings now offer very large panoramic displays of outside views to every employee no matter the location or size of their work space. The very first windowless office building is possible using this technology coupled with high resolution cameras outside the building on each floor to give every employee the best view while retaining extremely high building strength and safety standards.