MarÃa Jesús San Segundo, Spanish Secretary of Education and Science, and Carlos Rubén Fernández, President of ONCE foundation, awarded the prize to the scientists at the historical Complutense University auditorium in Madrid. Georg Boomgaarden, German Ambassador to Spain, also participated in the festive award ceremony.
The displays use metallic films featuring various shape memory alloys which are produced layer by layer on silicon wafers using thin film technology. Display pixels are generated when the metallic film adjusts its curvature partially, similarly to bimetal snap plates for temperature switches. The movement of the films is then transferred to the touch panel via plastic pins und thus can be detected by the user.