The flat panel displays, which make kaleidoscopic colors when jabbed with a finger, contain liquid crystal sandwiched between layers of glass or plastic which becomes opaque with an electric current.

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The middle layer of glass separates the liquid crystal portion of the display from the touch portion.

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Dr Bard and his colleagues have developed a novel form of memory that consists of a thin layer of organic liquid crystal sandwiched between two sheets of glass.

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This time it is the impossibly thin, flat glass used to make liquid crystal displays.

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Layers of material which work as filters, electrodes, transistors and the liquid crystal itself are deposited onto a thin glass plate to form a sandwich that is covered with another pane of glass.

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While gadget hounds delighted in the new iPad, materials-science geeks lamented the continuing dominance of power-hungry liquid-crystal displays that use heavy pieces of glass.

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As for the liquid lens, Nippon Electric Glass' version uses low-power electric field to control its liquid crystal molecular orientation, thus changing the focal point.

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The device had been dropped and had a broken interior liquid crystal display (LCD) screen, though its outer glass layer was intact.

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