Researchers reverse engineering fire fly’s to make better LED lights. Sometimes, a trick gets pulled off better in nature than it does in a laboratory. That might be the case with new research claiming fireflies’ unique lanterns can be reverse-engineered for LED lights, making the bulbs as much as 55 percent more efficient. With help from scanning electron microscopes, the team took a deep look at the internal structure of fireflies from the genus Photuris and found scales on the cuticles in a “factory roof shape.” (Think slanted shingles.) So the team took a gallium nitride LED, added a coat of light-sensitive material, then used lasers to recreate the roof shape they saw in the fireflies. Voila , they report in two papers today, out in the journal Optics Express : an LED that is up to 55 percent better at its job. [hit like to know more about it ]
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 12:12:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015