Posted on 10/22/2005 8:12:55 AM PDT by ZGuy
The main light source of the future will almost surely not be a bulb. It might be a table, a wall, or even a fork.
An accidental discovery announced this week has taken LED lighting to a new level, suggesting it could soon offer a cheaper, longer-lasting alternative to the traditional light bulb. The miniature breakthrough adds to a growing trend that is likely to eventually make Thomas Edison's bright invention obsolete.
LEDs are already used in traffic lights, flashlights, and architectural lighting. They are flexible and operate less expensively than traditional lighting.
Happy accident
Michael Bowers, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University, was just trying to make really small quantum dots, which are crystals generally only a few nanometers big. That's less than 1/1000th the width of a human hair.
Quantum dots contain anywhere from 100 to 1,000 electrons. They're easily excited bundles of energy, and the smaller they are, the more excited they get. Each dot in Bower's particular batch was exceptionally small, containing only 33 or 34 pairs of atoms.
When you shine a light on quantum dots or apply electricity to them, they react by producing their own light, normally a bright, vibrant color. But when Bowers shined a laser on his batch of dots, something unexpected happened.
"I was surprised when a white glow covered the table," Bowers said. "The quantum dots were supposed to emit blue light, but instead they were giving off a beautiful white glow."
Then Bowers and another student got the idea to stir the dots into polyurethane and coat a blue LED light bulb with the mix. The lumpy bulb wasn't pretty, but it produced white light similar to a regular light bulb.
The new device gives off a warm, yellowish-white light that shines twice as bright and lasts 50 times longer than the standard 60 watt light bulb.
This work is published online in the Oct. 18 edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Better than bulbs
Until the last decade, LEDs could only produce green, red, and yellow light, which limited their use. Then came blue LEDs, which have since been altered to emit white light with a light-blue hue.
LEDs produce twice as much light as a regular 60 watt bulb and burn for over 50,000 hours. The Department of Energy estimates LED lighting could reduce U.S. energy consumption for lighting by 29 percent by 2025. LEDs don't emit heat, so they're also more energy efficient. And they're much harder to break.
Other scientists have said they expect LEDs to eventually replace standard incandescent bulbs as well as fluorescent and sodium vapor lights.
If the new process can be developed into commercial production, light won't come just from newfangled bulbs. Quantum dot mixtures could be painted on just about anything and electrically excited to produce a rainbow of colors, including white.
One big question remains: When a brilliant idea pops into your mind in the future, what will appear over your head?
Oops. Looks like I typed the date in using the metric system again.
Do the home office types at GE's NELA Park know about this? How long before they buy somebody off?
"Light'em if ya' got 'em" ~ "Light'em up" ~ "Turn on the lights"
All these guys appear to have done is come up with a different formula for the phosphor mix---why is it so much better????
Fluorescents are still the most efficient lighting. LED's keep getting more powerful, but not much more efficient, and color tint control seems to be a problem. I hope this new discovery improves that.
A stupid question from someone with no technology aptitude. How does one turn the light off, particularly on the silverware example?
Close your eyes?
Swallow the fork?
One presumes the power source is your hand, so the fork will be on if and only if you are holding it. Otherwise, when you put it down, it will disappear into a totally dark miasma unless, of course, someone has turned on the table, possibly by rubbing it's legs.
Brilliant... absolutely brilliant!
-ccm
LOL!
Who the heck would want lighted silverware, anyway?
Other than adding a new dimension for kids who enjoy playing 'train wreck' at the dinner-table, it seems pretty pointless to me. :)
This is really far out there, and sounds super exciting to me. I think this is very cutting-edge type stuff, and will be a commercial success shortly. What a neat discovery!
It's not a stupid question, Betty.
The silverware example is simply a stupid example.
These LEDs will still have to be connected to some kind of power source (battery or AC wiring), and will be turned on/off by some kind of switch. I think the author is just using weird examples to show how this material might also be used as part of things other than something that looks like a lamp or lightbulb. But whatever it is, it'll still have to have some kind of power source and switch.
No more turning on the lights at night to go to the bathroom...put those things at the end of your johnson and just go baby go!!!!!....talk about the Illuminate.......
I've got LED lights in my house.
They were mad expensive but I feel it was worth it. I don't mind taking the hit for being an early adopter.
The only place I've got regular bulbs is two on the outside(front and side of the house) and one in the fridge.
http://www.superbrightleds.com is where I got them from.
Swallowing the fork would probably upset my husband. Now not only will I be the typical shrew wife asking why he was so late, I will also have the ability to blind him every time I shout at him.
Rubbing the table leg might get me put in a special place with soft walls or listed in some sex offender registry.
Plunging my fork into a steak? It sounds reasonable, until one realizes that a bit of food will have to always stay on said fork. That seems a bit unsanitary.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.