According to Florida State University (Tallahassee) a new formulation for light-emitting-diodes (LEDs) could make lighting systems using the as cheap as incandescent bulbs, . FSU has come up with an inexpensive single layer combo-organic/inorganic material formulation that can glow red, green or blue (or all three together for white LEDs).
“LED researchers have only been using these new materials for about three years, even though its been used for solar panels for quite some time,” professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at FSU, Zhibin Yu, told EE Times. “Other groups are working on it for LEDs, but they need several layers of materials making it expensive to process. We are first published group to use a single layer.”
Today LEDs need high-temperature processing and expensive substrates to achieve their high power, but at a premium price. Organic LEDs (OLEDs) were originally processed at low-temperatures in single layers, but have since evolved to using multiple layers and amorphous silicon backplanes to achieve adequate efficiencies.
Yu, and his collaborator, post-doctoral researcher Junqiang Li, claim to have succeeded in combining the best of both world’s and then some. Their hybrid organic/inorganic material—organometal halide perovskite—can be deposited at room temperature on ultra-cheap glass substrates coated with indium tin oxide (ITO), then annealed at just 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celcius) using a solid metal backplane.
“Our new new device structure requires just mixing the organic polymer with the active inorganics, instead of using complicated structures with many layers,” Yu told us, “therefore making the process inexpensive and highly manufacturable.”
The researchers claim, in their paper, that the energy savings of LED lighting has finally been balanced out against their cost, by reducing the number of layers required from four or five to one. They also meet the U.S. Department of Energy’s mandate to use 75 percent less energy than incandescent lighting.
Image and article via EE Times
