问答题 Sir Richard Friend is a tough man to track down. Phone calls to his two labs at Cambridge University go unanswered, and so do e-mails. In the end, a reporter has to leave a note in his campus pigeonhole. The elusive Friend is the unlikely instigator of what may be a revolution in electronics: plastics. (46) Although most electronic devices make use of silicon chips, Friend sees a future in which mobile phones, TVs, watches, computers and other devices incorporate inexpensive plastic chips.
(47) Friend's vision is based on his own discoveries, back in the '80s and '90s, that plastics can be used to make transistors, the basic element of chips, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which glow when electricity passes through them. His work has already yielded a new generation of lighter, thinner, brighter, cheaper and more flexible electronic screens for everything from lightweight mobile phones to disposable "talking" electronic greeting cards. (48) Now he's working on devices that might bring us talking cereal boxes or advertising posters that light up and speak as you walk by. The materials might even be spray-painted onto walls that change color with the weather, or go into pillboxes that tell you when to take your medication.
It sounds farfetched, but the basic technology is already at hand. E-books with flexible screens that can be rolled up and put. into your pocket should start appearing in the next few years. (49) And plastic chips, which can be laid onto almost any surface, could be printed—just as ink is printed onto paper—onto any number of flexible surfaces. General Electric is working with the Department of Energy—to create large flexible sheets that could illuminate a room.
If you think everything is digital now, just wait. (50) "Products in your fridge tagged with a chip would automatically change color after their sell-by date," says Peter Harrop, chairman of market-research firm IDTechEx. For his Cambridge students, Sir Richard has one word of advice: plastics.