A metal more precious than Gold or Platinum?

That’s right people. There is one metal that has been going up in price at one of the fastest rates in history, all thanks to the technological revolution. It is Indium. A lot of you may not have heard about this story, but the world supply for Indium is going down while its demand is increasing exponentially. For those of you that don’t know about Indium, let’s have a short introduction. Indium is a post-transition metal with the atomic number of 49. It is named for its bright indigo spectral emission line. The single largest production facility of indium is in Trail, British Columbia at the Teck Cominco Refinery, with the yearly production going down at an alarming rate globally. Some of you may not have any idea why this is an important issue. Let me break it down for you.
Indium was first used commercially in World War II to coat bearings in high performance aircraft engines. With the advent of semiconductor electronics, tiny beads of Indium started being in transistors as collectors and emitters. Furthermore, due to the low melting point,  it is also used in RoHS-compliant lead free solders. The real revolution came in the late 1980s with the advent of LCD displays. Indium is an extremely interesting element owing to the fact that along with tin and oxygen, it forms one of the best performing transparent semiconductors. Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is a solid solution (like glass) of indium(III) oxide and tin(IV) oxide. Due to the metal oxide nature, it can be easily deposited using classical semiconductor fabrication methods such as physical vapour deposition (PVD) and sputtering. Due to its large bandgap, it remains transparent in the visible spectrum of light, but is opaque in the UV and IR regions of the light spectrum. Due to this nature, it is used widely in optoelectronic components such as lasers, solar cells, LEDs, LCDs etc. Additionally, due to the fact that it is transparent, they are widely used in touchscreens.
Of late, due to the booming demand for LCD displays, RoHS compliant electronics, and touchscreens, there is an explosion in the demand for ITO. Four years ago Indium was about $100/ kg, and now costs $800/kg. A recent spike drove the price briefly to $1000/kg. Indium is a metal that has more worldwide production through recycling than through mining. Proper e-waste disposal has meant that for the past few years, the supply of Indium has met the demand. However, with market predictions for Indium skyrocketing, scientists are busy looking at alternatives. Here at the University of Waterloo there is intense research going into the quest for alternatives for ITO using organic materials. Dr. Hany Aziz from the ECE Department is a leader in research into organic electronics and his research has yielded flexible materials that may eventually enable displays that wrap around your wrist.