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Science and Technology
科技版塊
Mobile phones
手機
Through a glass, brightly
透過玻璃看，很明亮
Toughening up phone screens with perovskites
用鈣鈦礦增韌手機屏幕
SINCE 2006, when Corning, an American glassmaker, developed Gorilla Glass to give Apple’s first iPhone a scratch-resistance screen, many other types of toughened glass have appeared for use in handsets.
自2006年以來，美國玻璃制造商康寧公司開發了鋼化玻璃，為蘋果第一款iPhone提供防刮擦屏幕，此后，許多其他類型的鋼化玻璃也用在手機中。
But as rugged as they are, people keep cracking and breaking them.
盡管它們很耐用，但是人們還是把手機屏摔碎了。
Jingwei Hou thinks he has found a way to prevent that.
侯經緯認為他已經找到了手機屏防摔碎的方法。
Dr Hou and his colleagues at the University of Queensland, in Australia, are among a number of researchers working on a group of materials called perovskites.
澳大利亞昆士蘭大學的侯博士和他的同事們是鈣鈦礦材料的眾多研究者之一。
The original perovskite, calcium titanium oxide, is a mineral discovered in the Ural mountains in 1839 and named after Count Lev Perovski, a Russian mineralogist.
最初的鈣鈦礦，鈣鈦氧化物，是1839年在烏拉爾山脈發現的一種礦物，以俄羅斯礦物學家列夫·鈣夫斯基伯爵命名。
Since then, the name has come to be used for a number of materials that share a similar crystal structure.
從那時起，這個名字被用來指代許多具有相似晶體結構的材料。
Much of the interest in perovskites comes because those which combine metal atoms with chlorine, bromine or iodine (members of a group of elements called halogens) are semiconductors.
人們對鈣鈦礦的興趣很大，因為那些將金屬原子與氯、溴或碘（鹵素元素組的成員）結合在一起就是半導體。
This makes them potentially useful in a variety of electronics.
這使得它們在各種電子產品應用方面具有相當大的潛力。
In particular, one promising feature of metal halides is that they can be used to make new types of solar cells which are more efficient at converting sunlight into electricity than the silicon-based cells currently employed.
特別是，金屬鹵化物一個非常棒特點是，它們可以用來制造新型太陽能電池，這種電池比目前使用的硅基電池將太陽光轉化為電能的效率更高。
Oxford PV, a British company, is bringing some of the first perovskite solar cells to market.
英國牛津光伏公司將首批鈣鈦礦型太陽能電池推向市場。
However, what works in one direction will often work in the other, and so it is with perovskites.
然而，在一個方向起作用的東西通常在另一個方向起作用，鈣鈦礦也是如此。
This means that instead of converting sunlight into electricity, metal-halide perovskites can operate in reverse, by emitting light in response to an electric current.
這意味著金屬鹵化物鈣鈦礦可以反向工作，不需要將陽光轉化為電能，而是可以通過發光來響應電流。
An array of tiny specks of perovskites could therefore work like a grid of LEDs in a display screen.
因此，鈣鈦礦的微小斑點陣列可以像顯示屏上網格狀的LED一樣工作。
To produce such screens, Dr Hou and his team developed a way to bind tiny "nanocrystals" of lead-halide perovskites into a specially treated synthetic glass composite.
為了制造這種屏幕，侯博士和他的團隊開發了一種方法，將微小的鹵化鉛鈣鈦礦“納米晶體”結合到經過特殊處理的合成玻璃復合材料中。
As these nanocrystals are extremely sensitive, and decay rapidly if exposed to moisture in the air, being bound up in the glass protects them.
由于這些納米晶體極為敏感，如果暴露在濕空氣中，會迅速衰敗，因此被包裹在玻璃中可以保護它們。
It also prevents lead ions, which are toxic, leaching out of the material. At the end of their lives, the screens would be recyclable.
它還可以防止有毒的鉛離子從材料中滲出。在他們的生命結束時，屏幕將是可回收的。
A study Dr Hou carried out in collaboration with teams from Britain and France, which was published recently in Science, showed that perovskite screens made in this way were efficient light emitters able to produce sharp, bright images.
侯博士與英國和法國的研究團隊合作進行的一項研究最近在《科學》雜志上發表，該研究表明，以這種方式制造的鈣鈦礦屏幕是高效的發光體，能夠產生清晰、明亮的圖像。
The light could also be tuned to different colours by altering the nanocrystals' characteristics.
通過改變納米晶體的特性，光也可以被調成不同的顏色。
An added bonus was that the screens were extremely tough, because of the way the nanocrystals bonded with the glass.
另外一個好處是，由于納米晶體與玻璃的結合方式，屏幕非常堅硬。
That was helped by the mechanical structure of the glass (known technically as a zeolitic imidazolate framework) having a spongelike atomic arrangement.
這得益于具有玻璃海綿狀原子排列的機械結構（技術上稱為沸石咪唑鹽框架）。
This provides a degree of flexibility, thus avoiding breakage problems caused by brittleness.
這提供了一定程度的靈活性，從而避免了脆性造成的斷裂問題。
In as much as anything can be considered unbreakable, perovskite screens just might be that, reckons Dr Hou—and they might be used not just for phones, but also for products ranging from televisions and computers to lighting.
侯博士認為，鈣鈦礦結構的屏幕幾乎摔不破，它們可能不僅用于手機，還用于電視機、電腦和照明等產品。
But he does think it could take five to ten years of development before this will happen.
但他認為這需要五到十年的發展才能實現。
In the meantime, people should take a bit more care with the screens on their devices.
與此同時，人們應該更加小心不要摔碎了設備上的屏幕。
