The Chemistry of Touchscreen Phones

QUINZON, JOHN DAVID L.

BSMT 1A(2)
CHEMLEC PRESENTATION
History of Touchscreen
Phones (The inventor of
touchscreen)
 George Samuel Hurst (1927-2010) - In 1971, the first "touch
sensor" was developed by Doctor Sam Hurst (founder
of Elographics) while he was an instructor at the University
of Kentucky. This sensor called the "Elograph" was
patented by The University of Kentucky Research
Foundation. The "Elograph" was not transparent like
modern touch screens, however, it was a significant
milestone in touch screen technology.
 In 1974, the first true touch screen incorporating a
transparent surface came on the scene developed by
Sam Hurst and Elographics. In 1977, Elographics
developed and patented five-wire resistive technology,
the most popular touch screen technology in use today.
But, it was not mass-produced and sold until the early
1980s.
History of
Touchscreen Phones
(The innovators)
 David Packard and Bill Hewlett (1983) - HP-150, a touchscreen home computer.
 Apple (1993) – Newton PDA

 Microsoft (2002) – Windows XP Tablet edition

 Apple (2007) – Iphone

What is the Chemistry of Touchscreen Phones?
What are they made of? (Smartphones)
 Smartphone is composed of 70 out of 83 non-radioactive elements in periodic table in
which 62 are metals (copper, gold, platinum, tungsten…).
 It contains rare earth metals such as scandium, yttrium and elements 57-71(Lanthanides
except promethium, because of its intense radioactivity). And these rare earth metals is
what makes this phone “smart”.
 Dysprosium, neodymium and terbium (Dy, Nd, Tb) – part of lanthanides that causes
smartphone to vibrate.
 Praseodymium, neodymium and gadolinium (Pr, Nd, Gd) – part of lanthanides that helps in
communication through speakers and microphone.
 The remaining rare earth metals are used to produce the vivid colors in the screen and
reduce UV light penetration into the phone.
 The screen of smartphone is a synthetic glass-ceramic that is invented because of
serendipitous (faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident), when a chemist
accidentally heated a sample of glass to 900 degrees C then he dropped it onto the floor
and it bounced instead of breaking.
 And for the battery, it was composed of lithium cobalt oxide, which makes up the battery’s
positive side, and for the negative side, carbon or graphite. This battery, as well as the case
for the entire phone, will be wrapped up in aluminum.
What is the Chemistry of Touchscreen Phones?
How do the touchscreen work?(Capacitive)
 There are two ways a phone touchscreen may work. One is
through Capacitive. Capacitive screens can be touched in
more than one place at once. Unlike most other types of
touchscreen, they don't work if you touch them with a
plastic stylus (because the plastic is an insulator and stops
your hand from affecting the electric field).
 Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) – a thin film on the glass screen of
smartphones that is optically transparent, and have a high
conductivity that causes the touchscreen works.
 “With tin – replacing some 3+ indium ions with 4+ tin ions –
means that the delicate balance of electrons in nicely
insulating indium oxide is upset and it becomes conducting.
There are electrons in its conduction band, as a physicist
might say. A physicist might go on to tell you that most
conductors are not transparent, because they do not have
an energy gap between their valence and conduction
bands – something most transparent materials do have. But
because ITO is only just conducting it is still able to let visible
light through without interfering with it.(chemistryworld).”
What is the Chemistry of Touchscreen Phones?
How do the touchscreen work? (Capacitive)
- In capacitive, when a finger touches the screen, some of the electrical charges transfer from the screen to
the user. Sensors present on all four sides of the screen can detect this decrease in electric current. A
controller is present that detects the point on the screen a person has touched. The unique feature of the
capacitive touch screen is that it will only operate at the touch of a human being or a stylus.
What is the Chemistry of Touchscreen Phones? How
do the touchscreen work?(Resistive)
 They can be touched with any type of material and still work
 Like the ATM, or the little machine at the checkout counter where you sign your name for the
credit card you use
 They are made of two layers of conductive materials
 When you touch a resistive screen the screen actually bends and touches the other layer
so it connects the circuit
 The software recognizes the change in the current at the point of contact and responds
by carrying out the action that corresponds with that spot
 Pressure-sensitive screens
 Only one button can be pressed at once, if more than one is pressed at once then the
software won’t respond
(chemistryislife)
What is the Chemistry of Touchscreen Phones? How do
the touchscreen work?(Resistive)

 When you press a resistive touchscreen, you push two conducting

layers together so they make contact, a bit like an ordinary
computer keyboard.
Harm of Touchscreen
Phones/Smartphones in our health
 LED(light emitting diodes) in smartphones produces light which is the blue light that is
harmful to our health when exposed very long enough. This blue light emitted by the phone
is harmful for it has a very short wavelength (means a high in frequency) making it
produced a high amount of energy that may damage our body parts that is exposed to it.
 Study found that blue light turns a molecule in the eye into a poison that kills photoreceptor
cells, which do not regenerate.
 It can cause macular degeneration, one of the leading causes of blindness.
REFERENCES
 https://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/10471424/How_Does_a_Touchscreen_
Work.html
 https://www.sciencealert.com/watch-the-chemistry-of-a-smartphone
 https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters
/past-issues/archive-2014-2015/smartphones.html
 http://www.chemistryislife.com/the-chemistry-of-smarthp
 https://www.onhealth.com/content/1/dangers_cell_phone_health
 https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.3554323
 http://theinventors.org/library/inventors/bltouch.htm
 https://mashable.com/2012/11/09/touchscreen-history/
 https://www.thoughtco.com/lanthanides-properties-606651
 https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/chemistry/news/smartphones-1.782485
 https://www.explainthatstuff.com/touchscreens.html
 https://www.chemistryworld.com/podcasts/indium-tin-oxide-ito/3008984.article
 https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=9634
 https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/touch-screen-respond-touch.html
 https://www.businessinsider.com/blue-light-from-smartphones-and-laptops-can-
make-us-blind-according-to-study-2018-8