They used glass, stainless steel, ceramic tile, flexible polymer sheets and even a mug to demonstrate how well the paint works.

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However, it is not possible to anneal the metal oxides, an active material, at this high temperature on flexible polymer substrates.

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Made from a flexible polymer film suffused with fluorescent particles, the prototypes catch only a specific wavelength of light and shoot it to an array of sensors that surround the sheet's edge.

ENGADGET

Dr Hinterdorfer and his team tested this idea by applying a coating of an antigen (an enzyme called lysozyme) to a mica sheet, and suspending an appropriate antibody from the tip of an atomic-force microscope with a flexible polymer tether.

ECONOMIST: Microscopy

Under a defence contract, Dr Claus's laboratory is testing a photovoltaic cell constructed from films of polymer and ceramic which feels as flexible and hardy as cloth.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

Takao Someya of the University of Tokyo has built for himself a stretchy, flexible conducting material using carbon nanotubes mixed with a polymer.

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Dr Claus has already used this process to make a flexible kind of photovoltaic cell, made from alternating polymer and ceramic layers, that can be sewn on the outside of a tent.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

The problem with flexible displays is not so much the screen but the drive electronics that switch the individual polymer pixels on and off.

ECONOMIST: SEMICONDUCTORS: Move over, silicon | The