The news that commercial uses for ultraviolet (UV) light are growing so rapidly is very encouraging for the end user especially when it comes to his or her wallet. A new kind of LED is currently under development at The Ohio State University which could very likely lead to many more portable and cost-effective uses of the technology. In the not so distant future, there could be a whole host of new affordable portable devices available which would be positive news for those making use of e-book readers and other devices – like those used for playing Candy Crush, Jack Gold mobile slots or any of your favourite mobile games.
Compared to today’s commercially available UV LED’s, the patent-pending LED actually creates a more precise wavelength of UV light. It also runs at far lower voltages and is relatively more compact than other experimental methods for creating precise wavelength UV light. The only other known device which is able to electrically control gadolinium light emission requires in excess of 250 volts to operate.
Amongst other things the LED could be used in applications for chemical detection, UV curing and disinfection. It is rumoured that if this technology is further developed, albeit significantly, it may even be able to provide a source for UV lasers for computer chip manufacturing as well as eye surgery. Because the LED emits light at specific wavelengths, there is the possibility that it could be used for research spectroscopy applications which require a reference wavelength and due to the fact that it needs only 10 volts, there is a very good possibility that it may be useful in portable devices too.
These LED’s were created out of semiconductor nanowires which were doped with the rare earth element gadolinium. The study’s co-author, Roberto Myers, who is associate professor of materials science and engineering at Ohio State said that the unique design enabled the engineers to excite the rare earth metal by passing electricity through the nanowires.
“As far as we know, nobody had ever driven electrons through gadolinium inside an LED before,” Myers said. “We just wanted to see what would happen.”
Myers went on to say,
“We believe our device works at significantly less voltage precisely because of the LED structure, where the gadolinium is placed in the center of the LED, exactly where electrons are losing their energy. The gadolinium atoms get excited and emit the same UV light, but the device only requires around 10 volts.”
