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?
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That was exactly it for me. Saving $$$
Because they're stretching to get their names in the paper Since few people really know how a white LED works they're more likely to think this stuff is 'hot-$h¡†-on-toast' and it'll make all the news shows and science magazines.
So what, you are a guy from the future coming back to tell us how wonderful everything will be in 10 years? So tell us, who wins the Presidency in 2008? Are their still Democrats in 2015? :-}
Does a lighted fork in a closed drawer continue to emit light?
Finally a way to glow without having sex! How angellic!
this is really wild - truly a leap into the future as i imagined it in my SF books i read forty years ago!
Right. ROTF PMP AWS
You have to bet that Vanderbilt already has title to this patent.
Paint the ceiling with it, run a couple of almost invisible ribbon power strips from a wall-mounted, low -voltage transformer with a mini-receiver and turn on the ceiling or dim it from anywhere with a remote hand control.
......We do not offer anything bright enough for general household lighting.....
There is a discrepancy between your post and their website......
Thanks for your real answer. I appreciate it.
Ummm... Excited Dots...
Hey, not just "put those things", have them tatooed as a tasteful design. Could get you on the Martha Stewart show or something!
Boy you got that right. This is going to drive a future stock surge. LEDs could also eliminate the need for more power generators as the energy consumption could be reduced 7% - 14%.
In addition, wouldn't the cord(s) supplying the power, be a pain in the a** at the table? ;-)
Well...YEAH!
(Otherwise, it wouldn't BE a lighted fork, it would be an unlighted one :)
Professor....
You have WAY too much time on your hands!
LOL!
Tried to get my Electrical Contractor brother interested in LED lighting last year : wrong developer. Roentgen discovered X rays and within weeks they were being used in medicine, now it's routine technology. Since there are many companies in the lighting production business it should be mere months before you see this quantum dot/LED concept on the shelves at your local Home Depot/supermarket. Remember the partially silvered bulb that reflects infrared radiation from the filament back to the filament thus re-heating it = more efficiency? Didn't sell too well. Thus it will come down to marketing prowess in lumens/watt/cost that will make or break this concept. To wit, if you don't have a manufacturer/marketer willing to gamble a LOT of money on your invention/discovery...don't even bother getting an expen$ive patent. How many of you out there already know that...
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.