In recent years, light emitting diodes (LEDs) have begun to change the way we see the world. Now, a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student has developed a new type of LED that could allow for their widespread use as light sources for liquid crystal displays (LCDs) on everything from televisions and computers to cell phones and cameras.
Martin Schubert, a doctoral student in electrical, computer, and systems engineering, has developed the first polarized LED, an innovation that could vastly improve LCD screens, conserve energy, and usher in the next generation of ultra-efficient LEDs. Schubert’s innovation has earned him the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize.
Schubert’s polarized LED advances current LED technology in its ability to better control the direction and polarization of the light being emitted. With better control over the light, less energy is wasted producing scattered light, allowing more light to reach its desired location. This makes the polarized LED perfectly suited as a backlighting unit for any kind of LCD, according to Schubert. Its focused light will produce images on the display that are more colorful, vibrant, and lifelike, with no motion artifacts.
Schubert first discovered that traditional LEDs actually produce polarized light, but existing LEDs did not capitalize on the light’s polarization. Armed with this information, he devised an optics setup around the LED chip to enhance the polarization, creating the first polarized LED.
The invention could advance the effort to combine the power and environmental soundness of LEDs with the beauty and clarity of LCDs. Schubert expects that his polarized LED could quickly become commonplace in televisions and monitors around the world, replacing widely used fluorescent lights that are less efficient and laden with mercury. His innovation also could be used for street lighting, high-contrast imaging, sensing, and free-space optics, he said.
Source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Related stories:
Two for One: New Design Enables More Cost-Effective Quantum Key Distribution
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated a simpler and potentially lower-cost method for distributing strings of digits, or “keys,” for use in quantum cryptography, the most secure method of transmitting data. The new “quantum key distribution” (QKD) method, outlined in an upcoming paper, minimizes the required number of detectors, by far the most costly components in quantum cryptography.
Meteorites delivered the 'seeds' of Earth's left-hand life
Flash back three or four billion years — Earth is a hot, dry and lifeless place. All is still. Without warning, a meteor slams into the desert plains at over ten thousand miles per hour. With it, this violent collision may have planted the chemical seeds of life on Earth.
Polarization technique focuses limelight
The ability to explore remote worlds in space has been enhanced through a polarization technique that allows the first ever detection of light reflected by extrasolar (exoplanet) planets. The study has been accepted for publication in
Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Results promising for computational quantum chemical methods for drug development
New research, led by a Virginia Tech chemist, may someday help natural-products chemists decrease by years the amount of time it takes for the development of certain types of medicinal drugs. The research by T. Daniel Crawford, associate professor of chemistry, involves computations of optical rotation angles on chiral—non-superimposable—molecules. The research titled, The Current State of ‘Ab Initio’ Calculations of Optical Rotation and Electronic Circular Dichcoism Spectra, appeared recently as the cover article in
The Journal of Physical Chemistry A.
Oosight microscope enables embryonic stem cell breakthrough
A noninvasive, polarized light microscope invented at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) played a crucial role in a recent breakthrough in embryonic stem-cell research aimed at developing medical therapies.
Axions Not Cause of Unexpected Observation
Scientists from France have shown that hypothetical axion-like particles cannot explain some unexpected observations in an Italian experiment carried out last year. Ruling out axions will likely subdue some of the renewed interest in axion searches, currently underway at several major institutions.
Tailored for optical applications
When a calcite crystal is placed onto a printed page, the letters appear doubled. This is the result of a property called birefringence. Scientists at the Simon Fraser University in Canada have now developed a material that is among the most birefringent solids ever observed. As described in the journal
Angewandte Chemie, this material is not a mineral, but rather a coordination polymer.
Advance by chemists may lead to better displays on laptop computers, cell phones
UCLA chemists working at the nanoscale have developed a new, inexpensive means of forcing luminescent polymers to give off polarized light and of confining that light to produce polymer-based lasers.
