The man-made Gallium Nitride (GaN), a semi-conductor used to make LEDs (light emitting diodes), emits a brilliant light while using very little electricity.
 
The Centre for Gallium Nitride based at Cambridge University has developed a new way to make GaN which would mean that LEDs production would be a tenth of current price.

GaN can now be grown in labs on silicon wafers rather than the costly sapphire wafers used since the 1990s.  This cheaper system would enable homes and offices to be using this technology within the next 5 years.

A GaN LED can burn for 100,000 hours which means it only needs replacing after about 60 years.  An added plus is that no mercury is used making disposal less damaging to the environment.  Electricity used for lights replaced with GaN LED lighting would be reduced from 20% to 5%, requiring fewer power stations in the UK.

Parallel research is being done into how GaN lights might be able to mimic sunlight to help 3million people in the UK that suffer from SAD.

Ultraviolet rays from the GaN lighting could assist in purification of water and disease control in developing countries, identifying the spread of cancer tumours as well as fight hospital “super bugs”.

Presently GaN LED lighting is a brilliant blue or green in colour.  This is transformed into a practical white light by applying a coating of phosphorus.

Professor Colin Humphreys, the lead scientist on the project said:  “This could well be the holy grail in terms of providing our lighting needs of the future.  We are very close to achieving highly efficient, low cost LEDs that can take the place of both traditional and currently available low energy light bulbs”.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/hide comments

Write comment

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment