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Organic LED Could Replace Light Bulbs?
egrinake writes to mention a BBC article about a 'natural' replacement for lightbulbs. From the article: "The organic light-emitting diode (OLED) emits a brilliant white light when attached to an electricity supply. The material, described in the journal Nature, can be printed in wafer thin sheets that could transform walls, ceilings or even furniture into lights. The OLEDs do not heat up like today's light bulbs and so are far more energy efficient and should last longer."
What's so wrong about light bulbs or processors producing heat besides their natural purpose ?
It seems to me the more heat I produce from my bulb/processor, the less my temperature regulator will pull energy from my heating system (based on gas, which is becoming more expensive). What's wrong with this way of thinking ?
TFA speculates that these oleds could become 100% efficient. Maybe these people should go to work on the perpetual motion machine. I'd bet the farm that they can't achieve 100%. "In this family we obey the laws of thermodynamics." etc. etc.
Because if they could do this, they'd have already done it for fluorescent tubes, which can be up to about 60% efficient (compared to 10% for incandescent bulbs)?
Rag paper has been around for a very long time. US currency is printed on rag paper. Wood is a popular raw material for paper products because it is cheap. No conspiracies needed, it's just economics.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
IF all of those things are true, then let a bunch of lightbulb manufacturers conspire not to produce it! All it takes is one who's willing to produce it, who can then start reeping huge market share (to meet the assumed customer demand). Heck, it could be you. If all of the above things are true, then you could come in and make a killing on this thing even if every single lightbulb manufacturer chooses not to. And as soon as you do, every manufacturer who "conspired" not to produce this will be forced to in order to chase after those profits that you're getting.
If any one of those assumptions above is false, then it does not require a conspiracy to prevent widespread production of this product. The most likely assumption that's false is #4, but it could be any of them. In any case, if we don't see OLEDs dominating the lighting market, will you simply conclude that it was a secret conspiracy or that maybe one of your upfront assumptions was false? My recommendation would be to apply occam's razor.
$.02
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I know OLED displays are currently in research stage, but why isn't anyone making displays out of normal LEDs? LEDs being semiconductor components like transistors, shouldn't it be easy enough to miniaturize them to be small enough to be pixels? Or don't they emit enough light at such small sizes? Why do you need them to be organic to be suitable for displays?
There is a difference with Flourescent tubes: a lot of people hate them (I hate the attribution a lot of people... but hey).
Flourescent tubes give off a crappy light that makes a lot of people ill...
Ahh... but a dimmer means the bulb is not running at it's most efficient point, and so you use more electricity per lumen.
Which gets us to the real reason light bulbs don't have drastically longer lives... tuning a light bulb so it has a longer life means that it has significantly lower energy efficiency. Those "long life" light bulbs you see in the supermarket usually end up costing you more in the long run. They do make some sense to use them in a situation where they are difficult or even dangerous to replace, but then you would be wise to consider compact flourescent as they last VASTLY longer and use significantly less energy. And that "bad light" and "flicker that makes people sick" is pretty much an artifact of the past. Newer tubes and bulbs have much cleaner light.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
The OLEDs do not heat up like today's light bulbs and so are far more energy efficient and should last longer.
Yes, but does it create a nice black-body spectrum curve like conventional light bulbs?
Most people like warm cross-spectrum light because it resembles sunlight, I didn't RTA but 'a brilliant white light' sounds like fluorescent to me. Not a very 'natural' alternative.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
This is pretty funny, but in reality I fully expect that a lightbulb over the head will always be symbolic of idea, it's just that eventually we won't know what a lightbulb is. It'll just be an idea over the head, and no one will know why it looks like that.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
If not, how do you explain that the bulb allways burn when you turn it on, and almost never while it's already lit for some time? Well, that's how it seems anyway. I am not a scientist, but it makes sense to me, AND it matches the fact I experienced in the last five years in my own house.
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