By comparison, the liquid crystal magic windows are completely flat and smooth. “By tailoring the orientation of the molecules, we essentially decide what image will be formed,” says Hufnagel.įor millennia-old mirrors, very slight bumps and indentations on their surfaces made light bounce off in just the right way to form an image. The new technique uses a similar idea, applying an electric voltage to the liquid crystals to show different images. Many television screens employ liquid crystals because their properties, like colour, can be controlled by changing the patterns of the molecules. While liquids flow freely and crystal atoms are organised in stiff grids, liquid crystals split the difference: their molecules are both fluid and arranged in patterns. Their versions contain a state of matter known as a liquid crystal. Craftspeople in ancient China and Japan made magic mirrors out of bronze that similarly hid images, but physicists only began to understand how they work around 15 years ago.įelix Hufnagel at the University of Ottawa in Canada and his colleagues used those insights to build a new type of magic mirror and window. The technique, inspired by a 4000-year-old trick for building “magic mirrors”, may be a step towards developing better displays for 3D images.Ī magic mirror or window looks transparent until a light is shined onto it to reveal a secret image. Windows and mirrors embedded with liquid crystals can hide images that appear only when the right kind of light is shined on them. When bright light shines onto the mirror it reflects a hidden pattern nearby
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