New Lighting Could Replace Fluorescents, CFLs, and LEDs As The Light Source Of The Future
FIPEL Lighting Could Replace Fluorescents Ken Bennett, Wake Forest University photographerFIPEL technology produces the soft, white light our eyes crave without that annoying fluorescent hum. Like the desktop printer and the fax machine, the fluorescent overhead light might soon see a diminished role around the office. Researchers at Wake Forest University have developed a field-induced polymer elecroluminescent (FIPEL) lighting technology that silently gives off a soft, white glow, sans the annoying hum and yellow tint of fluorescent bulbs or the sharp, bluish hue of LED light fixtures. FIPEL technology is by no means brand new, but turning it into a viable light source has taken some time. The Wake Forest team used a multi-layer white-emitting blend of polymers imbued with a small amount of nanomaterials that glow when stimulated with an electric charge. This nano-engineered polymer matrix is essentially a whole new type of light bulb, different from both the filament-filled...