Researchers tout better, brighter LEDs

A pair of researchers at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science seem to think they're well on their way to building a better LED -- one that's not only brighter than existing LEDs, but more energy efficient and less expensive to boot. According to Physorg, the team's biggest success so far is red phosphorescent LED (or PLED) that delivered a record-breaking 18 lumens per watt (compared to an average of 12 lumens per watt with current red LEDs). The key to that, it seems, was to simplify the LED as much as possible, which they did by adding a polymer powder and liquid mixture to a "previously top-secret material" developed by Canon. The resulting "paint-like product" was then used to coat a layer of glass, with a charge then added to get the whole thing going. From the sound of it, these new wonder LEDs should be making their way into consumer products sooner rather than later, with Canon (naturally) reportedly already having licensed the technology and the first commercial products expected in "about three years."

[Darwin @ May 18th 2007 12:31PM]

The photo shows a PDA that uses a backlit LCD, not LEDs. Granted, their goal is likely to create something like an LCD, but it's a long, long road from replacing OLED displays to replacing LCD displays. Even the source article confounds the three technologies.

[Darwin @ May 18th 2007 12:40PM]

On the same site, there's a nice article about producing hydrogen from aluminum and water.... Now I'm looking forward to the day when all we need is water to cool and fuel our PCs.
http://www.physorg.com/news98556080.html

[Phi Nguyen @ May 18th 2007 1:59PM]

Haha, the guy on the left looks like he's about to say, "OH NO YOU DIDN'T!"

[mike @ May 18th 2007 2:14PM]

Philips Lumileds can output over 70 lumens / watt in white and various colors

http://www.lumileds.com/pdfs/DS56.pdf

http://www.futureelectronics.com/products/includes/LUXEONRebel_032707.pdf

[Darwin @ May 18th 2007 4:03PM]

That's another problem with this article. These guys aren't trying to beat regular LED's. It took me a few seconds to realize they were talking about the kind you get on tech device displays these days, most of which are OLEDs, not discrete ones.

[jason @ May 18th 2007 2:23PM]

my treo already blinds me...it doesn't need to be any brighter

[Conuns @ May 18th 2007 3:04PM]

pshhh...get with the times Engadget...

http://www.sid.org/pressroom/070511.html

[gshb @ May 18th 2007 4:32PM]

the guy on the right was my professor at UCLA. the guy on the right is a grad student. professor yang yang is part of the material science department. the device described in this article relates more to OLEDs than discrete LEDs. the work done is pretty cool...

[Richard Lai @ May 19th 2007 9:46AM]

So you went to UCLA? Which one is left and which one is right?

[gshb @ May 19th 2007 10:34AM]

sorry, the grad student is on the left, professor on the right. the professor is quite a no nonsense kind of guy and his group is the most well funded. they do more research on other polymer devices such as memory.