Photonic Structure Increases Light Bulb Efficiency

An Anonymous Coward writes "A new experimental microscopic tungsten lattice can increase the efficiency of an incandescent electric bulb from 5 percent to greater than 60 percent. This is done by converting waste heat into visible light. "

Comments

60 percent? Oh, My, GOD!

[jcr]

A 60% efficient incandescent bulb would have a whole lot of applications beyond just saving money on the power bill.

Think projector lamps: Think about the waste heat they wouldn't generate. Think about the cooling fans they won't need. Imagine a 40-watt bulb throwing as much light as a 500 watt bulb does today.

I sure hope this hits the market sometime SOON.

-jcr

Light emitting technology

[wowbagger]

The science of turning electric power into light has really changed in the past decade. I've seen a graph in one of my engineering trade journals showing the efficency of LEDs in lumens per watt. Just a decade ago, the best LEDs were two orders of magnitude less efficent than flourescent bulbs. Now, the new generation of blue and white LEDs are more efficent than flourescent, and are approching the levels of low pressure sodium lights.

If we extrapolate from the given 5%->60% levels given in the article, that would raise incandescent lights to nearly the levels of flourescent, without the warm-up time flourescent has.

Now, the problem with LED vs. flourescent is cost - LEDs are much more expensive in terms of lumens per doller than flourescent. Would microstructured tungsten be any cheaper?

What about LED's?

[dpbsmith]

Incandescent lamps... around 20 lumens per watt. Fluorescent lamps... about 70 lumens per watt. White LED, 50 lumens per watt and climbing. And the power requirements and ability to fit them into small spaces are much less tricky than for fluorescent.

LED's are almost there--and efficiencies are climbing. Main problem right now is that they're expensive. But already, I see they're being used for the red, and, increasingly, the green lights in traffic lights around here.

By the time this stuff makes it out of the lab, LEDs will be cheap and even more efficient than they are now.

And, of course, all the gee-whiz wizards-of-the-labs articles never say how much the new technology is likely to COST. And the stated efficiencies tend to decline as the devices start to approach reality...

If they can really make these things twelve times as efficient as LED's AND give a pleasant, flattering light spectrum AND get the cost down, it will be interesting.