New technology may render lightbulbs obsolete and save on energy costs.

A new material developed by US scientists can be printed in wafer thin sheets that could transform walls, ceilings or even furniture into lights. This new material does not heat up like today’s light bulbs and so it’s far more energy efficient and should last longer.

The basis of this new material is the organic light-emitting diode (OLED), which emits a brilliant white light when attached to a electricity. OLED’s also produce a light that is closer to natural daylight than traditional bulbs.

The researchers believe that eventually this material could be 100% efficient, meaning it could be capable of converting all of the electricity to light, without the heat loss associated with traditional bulbs.

"We’re hoping that this will lead to significantly longer device lifetimes in addition to higher efficiency," said Professor Mark Thompson of the University of Southern California, one of the authors of the research paper on this project.

Traditional light bulbs were invented more than 130 years ago and there have been very few changes to the technology since then. More than 20% of electricity used in buildings is eaten up by lights and nearly half that amount is used by these traditional light bulbs.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.