The LED, or Light Emitting Diode, has been around since the late 60’s but only over the last few years have LEDs made headway into commercial mainstream use.
Some new vehicles now use LED’s in headlights and taillights. The benefits of this are brighter light and much improved life span for the bulbs. Some stop lights also use LEDs to combat against the hazard of a stop light burning out.
Of more interest to technophiles is the advent of LEDs for use as backlighting in our notebook computers, such as the recently announced Dell Latitude XT tablet PC, and other personal electronic devices. LEDs promise less power consumption in out notebooks thereby increasing battery life. LEDs are also slowly making their way into our flat panel TVs such as the Samsung 31-inch OLED panel DailyTech reported on last week.
Scientists also have their eye on LEDs for use in the home to replace the incandescent and florescent light bulbs. The big benefit for consumers to using LED lighting in the home is much greater lifespan and less power consumption.
While some scientists are hard at work on methods to add more natural spectrums to current LED lights, other scientists announced a breakthrough last week to help defeat the problem with low light output from
LEDs.
A new method for increasing the light output from LEDs involves a process called nano-imprint lithography. Scientists at Glasgow University along with the Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde invented a process that makes millions of microscopic holes on the surface of a LED bulb, which increase the amount of light the LEDs give off.
Project leader
Dr. Faiz Rahman who told the BBC, “As yet, LEDs have not been introduced as the standard lighting in homes because the process of making the holes is very time consuming and expensive. However, we believe we have found a way of imprinting the holes into billions of LEDs at a far greater speed, but at a much lower cost."
According to Rahman the days of the humble light bulb may soon be over.