Engineers at Seoul National University in South Korea have developed M-Ink, technology capable of producing full-color prints in a fraction of a second. M-Ink can be used to produce any color in the visible spectrum and could result in a new technique for fast and inexpensive full-color printing, says lead researcher Sunghoon Kwon. M-Ink contains magnetic nanoparticles 100 to 200 nanometers across, a solvation liquid, and resin. The nanoparticles disperse throughout the resin, giving the ink a brown appearance, but when an external magnetic field is applied, the nanoparticles instantly realign to fit the magnetic field lines, creating chain-like structures. The regularly spaced nanoparticle chains interfere with incoming light, so the light reflected from the surface is a specific color. Adjusting the magnetic field strength changes the spacing of the field lines, which changes the color. Multiple electromagnets can be used to create curves in the image. The solvation liquid creates a repulsive force between the magnetic nanoparticles to ensure that they do not clump together in the ink. Once the desired color is created, the nanoparticles can be fixed in place by exposing the ink to ultraviolet (UV) light, which cures the resin. Full-color images are created by using maskless lithography to expose only desired areas to the UV light and repeating the process with different magnetic fields and UV light patterns.

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This is interesting news, although a bit heavy on jargons. Will this technology be available on inkjet printers? Hmmm...

Hope they come up with digital polariod as well :D

Hope they come up with digital polariod as well :D

LOL at this David! I'm imagining of a DSLR attachment similar to a battery grip.. An LCD display + Digital Polariod for your DSLR. :Grin:

I'm serious, though... it'd be great if they can come up with one...

looks like very early tech but very promising.. this could mean digital polaroids in the future.. imagine A4 within seconds, what more a pola sized print.. but there is already existing tech for instant digital prints (albeit small)

but I guess the more exciting thing here is the wide gamut of colors this can produce

Maybe a digital that produces a print +JPEG+RAW? What do you think? HE,he. But then why not?

Before I switched to digital, I was envisioning a generic digital back to use on my old SLRs.

When I shoot in mystudio, sometimes I print immediately on a Selphy 720. 4Rs lang pero I laughingly call it my polaroids. :)