Arrays of thousands of tiny “super prisms” controlled by robotic muscles could bring about a sweeping change in television technology in the form of real color to TV screens for the first time.
The devices, known as electrically tunable Diffraction Gratings have been built by researchers in switzerland, and can manipulate light to reproduce the full spectrum of colors on television screens. The existing technology allows a TV manufacturer to use only three primary colors(reg, green, blue)to reproduce all the colors visible on screen.
But this new technology uses a flexible approach for all the colors of the spectrum visible to the naked eye by creating a diffraction grating, a slotted grate like a miniature venetian blind. unlike solid grate, these grates are made up of flexible polymers, normally used to build artificial muscles in robots as they can contract when voltage is applied to them.

In a working screen made up of pixels multiple grates are placed behind each and every pixel. This allows composite colors to mix and reproduce full range of colors on teh TV screen. When a pure white light from the light emitting diodes hits these grates, the light splits into a full spectrum of colors just like a rainbow is placed from a prism. When different voltages are applied to these grates, they expand or contract. This causes the spectrum to shift after which different colors can be isolated from the spectrum by creating tiny holes in fromt of the grate. The colors can be lined up with the hole by adjusting the voltages across the grates.

This technology will produce the same density on a CRT as one gets on a high quality LCD. Initially thousands of volts were required to flex the muscles of the grates but now that has made the technology attractive enough to be adopted be electronic firms.

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