GLEN ALLEN, VA /PRNewswire/ -- Industry analyst firm NanoMarkets announced the release of a market report on transparent electronics titled, "Transparent Electronics Markets—2012." This report identifies and quantifies markets for transparent displays, solar panels, and sensors, as well as self-tinting windows. It also analyzes recent innovations in the materials from which these systems are fabricated, including the developments in metal oxide semiconductors and transparent electronic nanomaterials.
The report also contains eight-year forecasts, broken out by application and type of technology. Additional details about the report are available on NanoMarkets' Web site.
Although transparent electronic products have been available for some time, the new NanoMarkets report identifies opportunities appearing as the result of both the latest IT trends and the growing need to economize on energy usage. Among the firms that are discussed in this report are Apple, Bosch, China Technology Development, DVE, Dyesol, EControl Glas, General Motors, Gentex, HelioVolt, Konarka, Landec, Lenovo, LG, Odersun, Microsoft, NeoView, Kolon, Planar Systems, Pythagoras Solar, Pleotint, Polytronix, RavenBrick, Rockwell, Sage Electrochromics, Saint-Gobain, Samsung, Sanyo, Schott, Sony, Sharp, Soladigm, Solarmer, Sunovation, Thales, Toshiba, Umicore and Wurth Solar.
From the Report The development of metallic oxide thin-film transistors is enabling a new generation of transparent LCD and OLED displays with sophisticated active matrix backplanes. These displays will serve larger addressable markets than previous generations of transparent displays. NanoMarkets now expects transparent displays to become a major factor in the rapidly growing digital signage market and also to replace older technologies in the heads-up displays used in aircrafts and automobiles.
Transparent displays could reach mass-market volumes through the widespread adoption of augmented reality and telepresence applications that require their use. Apple has implied in recent patents that it will support augmented reality apps in its iPhone and has described a complex transparent display that could become standard in the iPhone, iPad, and similar devices within a few years. Meanwhile, telepresence could bring to video conferencing and distance learning the realism that these technologies have lacked. With Microsoft recently lending its support to transparent displays, it is even more likely that within a few years these displays will start to be sold in large numbers.
NanoMarkets also believes that increasing energy prices, along with the development of advanced transparent materials, will help drive the market for transparent solar panels and self-tinting windows. With regard to transparent solar panels, reductions in solar subsidies will give a boost to solar glass products that "lose" the cost of photovoltaics by integrating it into architectural glass. In addition, the advent of new thermochromic and electrochromic materials will enable significant improvements in self-tinting windows that are expected to be a vast improvement in terms of the ability to save energy over today's low-performing windows of this kind.
Indeed, the transparent electronics "revolution" will largely be enabled by novel developments in materials. The current emphasis in transparent electronics is on oxide conductors and semiconductors. NanoMarkets believes transparent electronics will also serve as a new market for nanomaterials and perhaps even organic electronic materials.
About NanoMarkets
NanoMarkets tracks and analyzes emerging market opportunities in energy, electronics, and other markets created by developments in advanced materials. The firm is a recognized leader in industry analysis and forecasts for the display, solar panel, and smart windows industries and for materials suppliers that serves these industries.