Funding secured for alternative lighting technology

Sara Ver-Bruggen - 22 Oct 2010

A new material that could enable a special kind of mouldable plastic to create solid-state lighting has secured funding for further development, with the aim of field testing in late 2011.

The material, based on carbon nanotubes, has been developed by scientists at Wake Forest's Centre for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials, in the US.

A spin-out company called PureLux, which was set up in 2007 to commercialise the technology, has secured further venture capital money recently from a group of investors.

The material has the potential to be used to manufacture cost-effective light sources that can be moulded into shapes, are cool to touch, as they do not generate heat, and will not break.

Displays

Potential applications include backlighting for e-paper displays, street signs, integrated with low-energy illumination, and a variety of commercial and corporate style lighting, as well as new concepts such as illuminating surfaces.

The PureLux light source comprises a thin sandwich of flexible electrode layers. A composite middle layer containing nanomaterials and light-emitting phosphors generates light. A bottom layer made of a metal electrode reflects light back into the middle. A transparent electrode makes up the top layer. A charge run between the two electrodes is intensified by the nanomaterials and the phosphors emit light.

Like OLED panels, the technology is colour tunable and can be fabricated by printing into thin, flexible sheets.

Purelux is 10 times more efficient than conventional bulbs and three times more efficient than fluorescent lamps, the firm claims.

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