July 2, 2004—Evident Technologies recently received funding from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to demonstrate and develop efficient white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) using quantum dots. This technology promises to produce better color characteristics than current LEDs, and to be suitable for general illumination.
Significant energy cost savings and environmental benefits can be gained by replacing incandescent and other low efficiency lighting sources in residential and commercial office buildings with LEDs, says Evident. If households in New York State replaced all incandescent lamps used for four or more hours per day with lamps using solid-state light sources, they could save 2.5 billion kWh annually, or 35 percent of all electricity used for residential lighting.
Evident will produce quantum dot nanomaterials, novel semiconductor particles that have tunable color properties complementing low-cost LEDs, to produce high-quality white light. This quantum dot-based light will have higher efficiency than halogen or incandescent lights, which will save money as well as help the environment by reducing greenhouse gases from fossil fuel electricity generation.
Evident Technologies will be collaborating with the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) on this effort.
