11 March 2025
Cost, technical performance and environmental impact – these are the three most important aspects for a new type of LED technology to have a broad commercial impact on society. This has been demonstrated by researchers at Linköping University in a study published in Nature Sustainability.
Photographer: Olov Planthaber
“Perovskite LEDs are cheaper and easier to manufacture than traditional LEDs, and they can also produce vibrant and intense colours if used in screens. I’d say that this is the next generation of LED technology,” says Feng Gao, professor of optoelectronics at Linköping University.
However, for a technological shift to take place, where today’s LEDs are replaced with those based on the material perovskite, more than just technical performance is required.
That is why Feng Ga
13 Comments
hulitu
> Next generation LEDs are cheap and sustainable
Sustainable ? Made from tropical forest trees ?
ilove_banh_mi
"sustainable" was incorrectly translated from the Swedish "miljövänliga" which instead means "environmentally-friendly" ("sustainable" is "hållbar" in Swedish)
NegativeLatency
Current LEDs are pretty cheap and comparatively sustainable (to other lighting technology), but lots of LED based lighting devices ship with:
– non replaceable batteries (flashlights)
– unreliable drivers that fail before the LED does, or kill the LED by heat or excessive voltage
Happy to see people working on new LED tech but the downstream effects of selling disposable stuff has to be much worse?
opwieurposiu
Is the gold in LEDs just in the bond wires?
softgrow
Surprisingly or not, isn't a very new idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_light-emitting_diod…
Note that extending the lifetime is key to taking advantage of their lower base material cost. Lot of work needed there.
WalterBright
When I was fiddling with LED circuits back in the 70s (!) I experimented with turning the LED on and off with a square wave. If you turned it on and off rapidly enough, your eye did not notice it, and your eye perceived it as fully bright. (Adjusting both the frequency and duration of the "on" part.)
Hence, you could get some decent power savings doing this.
I wonder if this is commonly known. I've mentioned it to a couple EEs over the years, and they were able to reduce the power consumption of their devices.
temptemptemp111
[dead]
declan_roberts
At this point I don't care about sustainable. I just want dimmable LEDs that don't flicker!
droopyEyelids
Anyone else a bit uncomfortable with how they say this next generation will have lead in it, but we shouldn’t worry about that?
NullPrefix
Can these new LEDS do proper color spectrum or are we still stuck on incandescent bulbs?
umvi
Now we just need modern houses that have a DC circuit dedicated to lighting
econ
I've bought 3 cheap alarm clocks and the LEDs are now so "good" the display lights up the entire room. With limited bedroom materials my inner macgyver was quite pleased with himself when he put one in a sock which has nothing to do with the topic but it did work. I can also confirm that cheap clocks are still amazingly hard to configure. By pressing multiple buttons simultaneously I managed to set one of the clocks to display the time only when a button is pressed. This is quite useless, I haven't figured out how to unset it and it isn't mentioned in the manual.
My point would be that the LEDs are now so cheap and good that the rest of the devices seem expensive by comparison and manufacturing can't resist the urge to wrap them in crap. I think I've purchased 30 bicycle lights in total. The Edison bulbs with dynamo sometimes last a hundred years (except from the replaceable bulb)
rob74
> We’d like to avoid the grave.
Don't we all… but somehow I get the feeling that something was "lost in translation" here?