Touchscreen technology is the direct manipulation type gesture based technology. Direct manipulation is the ability to manipulate digital world inside a screen without the use of command-line-commands. A device which works on touchscreen technology is coined as Touchscreen. A touchscreen is an electronic visual display capable of ‘detecting’ and effectively ‘locating’ a touch over its display area. It is sensitive to the touch of a human finger, hand, pointed finger nail and passive objects like stylus. Users can simply move things on the screen, scroll them, make them bigger and many more. There are four main touchscreen technologies:

1.      Resistive Touchscreen Technology

The resistive touchscreen consists of a flexible top layer made of Polyethylene (PET) and a rigid bottom layer made of glass. Both the layers are coated with a conducting compound called Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) and then spaced with spacers. While the monitor is operational, an electric current flows between the two layers. When a touch is made, the flexible screen presses down and touches the bottom layer. A change in electrical current is hence detected and the coordinates of the point of touch is calculated by the controller and parsed into readable signals for the operating system to react accordingly. The Resistive Touchscreen works well with almost any stylus-like object.

2.      Capacitive Touchscreen Technology

The Capacitive Touchscreen Technology is the most popular and durable touchscreen technology used all over the world at most. It consists of a glass panel coated with a capacitive (conductive) material Indium Tin Oxide (ITO). The capacitive systems transmit almost 90% of light from the monitor. In this technique only one side of the insulator is coated with a conducting layer. While the monitor is operational, a uniform electrostatic field is formed over the conductive layer. Whenever, a human finger touches the screen, conduction of electric charges occurs over the uncoated layer which results in the formation of a dynamic capacitor. The computer or the controller then detects the position of touch by measuring the change in capacitance at the four corners of the screen.

3.      Surface Acoustic Wave Touchscreen technology

The Surface Acoustic Wave Touchscreen technology contains two transducers (transmitting and receiving) placed along the X-axis and Y-axis of the monitor’s glass plate along with some reflectors. The waves propagate across the glass and are reflected back to the sensors.  When the screen is touched, the waves are absorbed and a touch is detected at that point. These reflectors reflect all electrical signals sent from one transducer to another. This technology provides excellent throughput and image clarity.

4.      Infrared Touchscreen Technology

In the Infrared Touchscreen Technology, an array of X- and Y- axes are fitted with pairs of IR LEDs and photo detectors. The photo detectors detect any change in the pattern of light emitted by the LEDs whenever the user touches the monitor/screen.

Read more about the pros and cons of each touchscreen technology.