FLAT-screen TVs that hang on the wall like a picture could soon be within reach of ordinary families, if a pioneering Oxfordshire company takes off, writes Maggie Hartford.

Venture capitalists 3i have put £2m into the new company, Printable Field Emitters, based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, near Didcot.

It aiming to develop the technology for affordable flat-screen colour TVs, using a hybrid version of the two rival methods of creating displays.

At the moment they cost £7,000 to £8,000 and technical director Richard Tuck said: "We hope that flat-screen TVs will be available at the cost of a high-end conventional TV - about £1,000."

"That's why the companies we have been talking to in Japan are interested and its why 3i want to invest in us."

PFE was founded in 1995 by Mr Tuck, a physicist, and Bill Taylor, who won a Government Smart award to develop their invention, ploughing their own money in to set up the business. Earlier this year they moved to the Rutherford Appleton to use the lab's state-of-the-art microfabrication equipment.

They now have ten staff and hope to grow to 20 in the next two years. After 18 months they aim to have produced part of a display measuring 1sq cm, and if they get more funding they will take another 18 months to develop a reasonable size display. They will then seek licensing agreements with electronics companies, or sell the materials to make the emitters.

Nigel Pitchford, of 3i, said: "This is cutting-edge technology at its most exciting. The PFE team are highly experienced in their technical field and more than capable of taking advantage of the increasing demand for new technologies to meet identified consumer needs."

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