Lighting the Future | Green Energy News

April 9, 2006 – Vol.11 No.3

LIGHTING THE FUTURE.

While inorganic light emitting diodes (LEDs) are moving forward as possible replacements for the venerable incandescent light bulb, researchers at Princeton University think carbon-based, organic LEDs (OLEDs) are the way to go for general lighting.

OLEDs use phosphorescent polymers that could be printed onto surfaces to make lighting screens that would light large areas: Think flat light-emitting devices plastered to a wall or ceiling. Lighting screens would potentially be easy and cheap to mass-produce. OLEDs are already found on some small electronics like cell phones.

Lighting accounts for about 22 percent of the electricity consumed in buildings in the U.S., according to Princeton. Forty percent of that amount is eaten up by inefficient incandescent bulbs. Incandescent bulbs convert more electricity to heat than they do light. The researchers think white-light OLEDs could operate at 100-percent internal efficiency - all of the electricity they consume would be turned to light.

It could be that mitigating global warming could include efforts as simple as changing a light bulb. Visit the journal Nature at http://www.nature.com/ and Princeton OLED researcher Stephen R. Forrest at http://www.ee.princeton.edu/people/Forrest.php