This week I have continued my travels in the world of indium tin oxide (ITO) as I continue the last stages of work on our upcoming report: The Future of ITO: Transparent Conductor and ITO Replacement Markets. Mainly I've been talking to product managers and technologists about where the world of transparent semiconductors is headed. The details of my conversations will be in the report, but I want to point out just how much fun this week and the discussions I've had have been.

It's not actually the ITO. Nerd that I may be, I find it hard to get that excited about a metal oxide of any kind. It's always nice to talk to interesting, intelligent people, of course. (And if anyone I spoke to this week on ITO is reading this, please accept my heartfelt thanks for sharing your views.) But it's not the good conversation either.

What has actually made this all so enjoyable is how my inquiries into ITO this week have allowed me into the realms of playing analyst to a range of different subjects: alternative energy sources, mining industry analysis, geopolitics and even inside trade secrets.

Let's begin with indium pricing. Will it go up, down, stay the same and why? The data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows that prices for indium have fluctuated for many years. These prices will presumably continue to do so. It's not just the demand for supplies that go into manufacturing flat panel displays that one has to take into consideration. The rise of thin-film PV is also a new demand pull on indium.

Copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) needs indium as well. In the past, indium went up in price because of demand from the nuclear power industry, then Three Mile Island happened and the nuclear industry collapsed. So did the price of indium along with it.

Suddenly I am transformed into an energy industry analyst. Would a revived atomic power industry push up the price of indium and make for more expensive ITO? This was suggested to me in one of my chats. (Neither of us was quite sure if the latest designs for nuclear power stations use indium. Does anyone out there know?)

If the price of indium went up how would the world react? Much it seems would depend on indium reserves and how accessible they are. Could indium prices go so high that people would start digging up zinc in places where zinc mines seemed uneconomic before?

Suddenly I am transformed into a mining industry analyst. This is the kind of question they have to deal with all the time. And that's just the supply side. So what will the display makers do? Most people seem to agree that they would swallow the consequent ITO price rises. I talked with one person who noted that in Korea so much of the economy depends on the display industry that there are no alternatives. Suddenly I am talking geopolitics.

Then back to the world of the humble electronics industry analyst. Almost everybody seems to think that it will be a couple of years before ITO substitutes will be ready for primetime. In large LCD displays, that is, ITO substitutes are already having some impact in the world of touch-screens.

So I ask, "What of the many materials being pushed as ITO substitutes will make the most impact?" Most people think there will be several, but an approach being touted by the materials firm, Cambrios was consistently mentioned. But Cambrios, it seems, is secretive and won't tell me what they are doing

But I think I know. And that's fun.