In the last few years there has been an incredible increase in our ability to communicate remotely and to store and display information. Mobile phones are common and the video phone which has been a sci-fi prop for so long is now a reality. All phone calls including mobile calls travel through glass fibre optics.

Large amounts of music images or data can be stored on discs, read by miniature lasers, or in solid state memory. Bulky television sets will soon be a thing of the past with the development of large liquid crystal displays, only 5 cm thick, and can be hung on a wall. Electronic products e.g. lap-tops, mobile phones are increasingly driven by the need for miniaturisation. Click here to see how a complete computer built on an LCD display might look.

All these developments rely on materials improvements such as liquid crystals that respond more quickly, electronic circuits with finer lines, higher frequency lasers and advances in semiconductors and polymers.