Fipel Backlighting (New Tech)

[Josh]

Looks like there is soon (next year) be an alternative lighting source from LED and OLED backlighting:

The new light source is called field-induced polymer electroluminescent (Fipel) technology. It is made from three layers of white-emitting polymer that contain a small volume of nanomaterials that glow when electric current is passed through them.

The inventor of the device is Dr David Carroll, professor of physics at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He says the new plastic lighting source can be made into any shape, and it produces a better quality of light than compact fluorescent bulbs which have become very popular in recent years.

Carroll believes that his product avoids the problem of OLED, which has so far failed to take off as expected.

But Prof Carroll believes OLED lights haven't lived up to the hype.

"They don't last very long and they're not very bright," he said. "There's a limit to how much brightness you can get out of them. If you run too much current through them they melt."

The Fipel bulb, he says, overcomes all these problems.

"What we've found is a way of creating light rather than heat. Our devices contain no mercury, they contain no caustic chemicals and they don't break as they are not made of glass."

Prof Carroll says his new bulb is cheap to make and he has a "corporate partner" interested in manufacturing the device. He believes the first production runs will take place in 2013.

Sounds like it would make a great backlighting source, especially if they can be cheaply manufactured.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20553143

[Johnny Vinyl]

I can't wait to hear more about this. This has super-huge potential IMO.