A UK developer has revealed that a new process of allowing for touch screens to incorporate pressure sensitivity could herald a new age of scrolling through phone, gaming and GPS interfaces. The material, which uses a quantum physics processes and is named ‘Quantum Tunnelling Composite’ (QTC), has been licensed by touch screen maker Nissha and could allow individuals to scroll faster with increasing pressure.
Created by Paratech, the Yorkshire based technology firm, pressure sensitive touch screens would allow someone to scroll at increasing speed down a list of emails for example. Meanwhile, the tech could allow a “third dimension” for touch screens, allowing for application to be organised by depth rather than file pages.
Using spiky nanoparticles which are placed evenly in a polymer without touching, increased pressure pushes the particles closer together resulting in a process called tunnelling. This tunnelling allows an increase in probability that the polymer surrounding the particles will allow an electrical current through, creating a faster, smoother current relating to the pressure put upon it. Incorporating this technology into smartphone scrolling buttoms, Philip Taysom, chief executive of Peratech said “That same model can be used in many other ways, like in games: to control how hard I want to jump or run for example. Electronics are being given the ability to sense something that we take for granted, which is how much we’re touching and applying force.”
