LED lighting has many advantages and there are more and more examples of it being used across a broad spectrum of applications. It is energy efficient, resistant to cold, directional, robust, brightness and colour controllable and environmentally friendly. It also renders colours accurately, operates immediately when the switch is flicked and has a relatively long lifetime.
Many of these advantages make LED lighting a good candidate for use in the complex environments that we get involved with in much of our work. However, alternatives are often used when the cost of LEDs becomes prohibitive.
Organic LEDs (OLEDs) have also been seen in more and more installations recently. One of the major benefits of them is that they can be transformed into many different shapes, including screens for HD TVs. However, for some applications their brightness and longevity does not yet live up to expectations.
Against this background we were interested to read on the BBC news website that
US researchers have said they’ve developed a rival to LED lighting. They say that it has much the same advantages as LED and OLED lighting, is relatively cheap and can be made into any shape. Another key claim made by the researchers is that the lighting form that they have developed (Field-induced polymer electroluminescent, or ‘Fipel’) can match the solar spectrum perfectly. It is this potential that marks it out in our book as a technology that could have great benefits to people working in environments where – for whatever reason – there is a limited amount of natural light.
Labels: interior design, lighting