Quantum Dots Enhance LED Lighting

Tiny semiconductor crystals could produce better colors for lighting and computer displays

The next big thing in solid-state lighting may be exceedingly tiny—the quantum dot. Researchers from around the world gathered at the Materials Research Society fall meeting in Boston last week to discuss the progress they're making in using quantum dots to enhance the color and efficiency of light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

QD Vision has produced an optic coated with a thin film of quantum dots and fits over a blue LED lamp. With the optic, the lamp produces light with a color temperature of 2700 kelvins—about the same as that of an incandescent bulb. It has a color-rendering index (a measure of how "natural" colors appear under it) of 90, compared with 95 for an incandescent bulb and less than 75 for most white LEDs.

IEEE Spectrum