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."

Comments

Good Idea...

[PC-PHIX]

...but a wafer thin sheet of organic material shining above a cartoon character's head is never going to look as good...!

In clothes

[Bombula]

Once they get this stuff stitched into clothing, it's going to be just about unbearable. As if all the marketing crap of t-shirts wasn't bad enough already, what with our entire culture expressing individuality by paying corporations for the privalege of advertising their products on our bodies, now people are actually going to be lit up like downtown Tokyo. Fan-fuckin-tastic...

Well, I suppose the Tron Guy is going to have a field day with this stuff, so it's not all gloom and doom...

Finally, a use for IPv6

[tk2x]

I have 10,000 light sources in my house... and I want to customize lighting scenes for every mood. Each OLED has its own IPv6 address, and I have a touch screen where I can paint different color lights.

Hmm, interesting possibilities...

Re:Finally, a use for IPv6

[Anonymous Coward]

So many possibilities... and you'd just end up drawing boobs and penises on it.

Re:Obvious Safety Application:

[Detritus]

Some drivers still wouldn't see you, even if you soaked your clothes in gasoline and set them on fire.

Don't Get It Wet

[Anonymous Coward]

"Before this becomes a reality, the scientists need to work out a way to seal the OLEDs from moisture which can contaminate the sensitive material, causing it to no longer work."

If only they could put it into an airtight package, something small and convenient, maybe a ...bulb... of some kind.

Re:Quick, bury it!

[mjh]

A secret conspiracy to deprive the public of OLEDs makes a bunch of assumptions:

1. There is no patent protecting this invention... AND
2. The consumer demand for this invention will be high... BECAUSE
3. It can be effectively used as a substitute for normal lightbulbs ...AND
4. It's more cost effective than normal lightbulbs (e.g. initial cost + lifetime eneregy spend is less for OLEDs than normal lightbulbs)

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

Re:Quick, bury it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for an electronics company with a world leading lighting divsion, and I can tell you we're moving to solid state lighting (of which OLED is a form) as fast we can. It's clearly the way of the future.

Obviously we're worried somebody else will take away our lighting market share by bringing out the killer-led-app. However, there's no question of "buying up IP and sitting on it". This playing field is as open as it gets in the industry.

Yeah but

[jlebrech]

how many OLEDs does it take to replace a lightbulb.

Re:stupid energy noob question

[Spock the Baptist]

There's an extra layer of inefficiency. If you heat your house by burning gas, you get nearly perfect efficiency: almost every joule of heat liberated by the chemical reaction goes into your house, with a relatively small amount of waste heat going up the chimney; modern boilers are very efficient indeed at getting every bit of heat they can.

The above statement assumes that you live in a place where heating is the main problem for indoor environmental control. I'd like to point out that for folks between the Tropics of Cancer & Capricorn or respectively just above, or below them heating is not the problem, cooling is.

Here in East Texas we're already running our air conditioners and it's only April. The reason for this is not that it's all that hot, but to dehumidify the air in our homes, offices, etc.. I've lived in Texas for all my 40 plus years. Normally we have more than ten days of 100 degree F. or greater being our daily high temperature. Late July, and all of August, plus the first half of September can produce some real scorchers. The use of high efficiency lighting, helps reduce the power consumption at home, office, etc. in two ways. First, it simply use less Joules to produce a given amount of lumens of light, second it reduces the amount of waste heat that the AC must deal with. So, you save on the cost per lumen of light, and you save on the cost of AC that is used to rid the indoor environment of the wast heat.

I've noticed that many of the post here on slashdot have a 'high latitude/left coast' bias on energy issues. Can't imagine why.