Next generation LEDs greatly improve the image quality on flat-screen TV sets in terms of color, contrast and high definition, just in time for the upcoming NBA finals.
The electronics industry is involved in a continuous race to make LEDs that make today's TV screens and cell phones more efficient, cheaper and with a higher quality.
It also happens to be the obsession of materials science and engineering professor Yang Yang and his graduate researcher Jinsong Huang, at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.
They have created a new generation of LEDs having the highest lumens per watt ratio ever recorded for a red phosphorescent LED using a new combination of plastic, or polymer, infused liquid. Unlike all new technologies, theirs will not double or triple the cost of TV sets, since the technique involves costs half as much as existing LEDs.
"That means your next LED flat panel
TV could be less expensive," Yang said. "And the picture will be brighter and clearer than ever before."
Lumens per watt is the measuring unit for luminous efficacy, a property of light sources, which indicates what portion of the emitted electromagnetic radiation is usable for human vision, closely related to he overall efficiency of a light source for illumination.
While today's most effective LEDs recorded around 12 lumens per watt, this new device rates a record-breaking 18 lumens per watt. "That's a significant difference," Huang said. "Visually, it means you get a higher quality display, and the product is also lighter and thinner. And with our improvements, you also need less energy, but you get an all-around better product."
The device has an extremely simple single-layer structure, generated by a much cheaper solution process. It uses a polymer powder and a liquid mixture, which is added to a previously top-secret material developed by the Canon company to create a paint-like product. The result is used as coating on a layer of glass, with an added electric charge, to produce a slim single layer of glass with two electrodes.
"It's a much simpler, lighter, thinner and more elegant answer to creating a better LED product," Yang said. "The current results represent our ongoing quest to create better, slimmer, less expensive high-performance PLEDs."
"Using our simple solution method, we already have successfully achieved several world records in device efficiency, including 20 lumens/watt white emission fluorescent PLEDs, 30 lumens/watt green emission fluorescent PLEDs and 18 lumens/watt red emission phosphorescent PLEDs. So our latest red emission PLED is just one of our multiple records. It's a very exciting development."
Commercial applications will come very soon, as Canon has already licensed the new technology.
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