• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Thursday, April 22, 2021
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

New LEDs may offer better way to clean water in remote areas

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
November 15, 2016
in Science News
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram
IMAGE

Credit: Image by Brelon J. May, courtesy of The Ohio State University.

COLUMBUS, Ohio–For the first time, researchers have created light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on lightweight flexible metal foil.

Engineers at The Ohio State University are developing the foil based LEDs for portable ultraviolet (UV) lights that soldiers and others can use to purify drinking water and sterilize medical equipment.

In the journal Applied Physics Letters, the researchers describe how they designed the LEDs to shine in the high-energy "deep" end of the UV spectrum. The university will license the technology to industry for further development.

Deep UV light is already used by the military, humanitarian organizations and industry for applications ranging from detection of biological agents to curing plastics, explained Roberto Myers, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Ohio State.

The problem is that conventional deep-UV lamps are too heavy to easily carry around.

"Right now, if you want to make deep ultraviolet light, you've got to use mercury lamps," said Myers, who is also an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. "Mercury is toxic and the lamps are bulky and electrically inefficient. LEDs, on the other hand, are really efficient, so if we could make UV LEDs that are safe and portable and cheap, we could make safe drinking water wherever we need it."

He noted that other research groups have fabricated deep-UV LEDs at the laboratory scale, but only by using extremely pure, rigid single-crystal semiconductors as substrates–a strategy that imposes an enormous cost barrier for industry.

Foil-based nanotechnology could enable large-scale production of a lighter, cheaper and more environmentally friendly deep-UV LED. But Myers and materials science doctoral student Brelon J. May hope that their technology will do something more: turn a niche research field known as nanophotonics into a viable industry.

"People always said that nanophotonics will never be commercially important, because you can't scale them up. Well, now we can. We can make a sheet of them if we want," Myers said. "That means we can consider nanophotonics for large-scale manufacturing."

In part, this new development relies on a well-established semiconductor growth technique known as molecular beam epitaxy, in which vaporized elemental materials settle on a surface and self-organize into layers or nanostructures. The Ohio State researchers used this technique to grow a carpet of tightly packed aluminum gallium nitride wires on pieces of metal foil such as titanium and tantalum.

The individual wires measure about 200 nanometers tall and about 20-50 nanometers in diameter–thousands of times narrower than a human hair and invisible to the naked eye.

In laboratory tests, the nanowires grown on metal foils lit up nearly as brightly as those manufactured on the more expensive and less flexible single-crystal silicon.

The researchers are working to make the nanowire LEDs even brighter, and will next try to grow the wires on foils made from more common metals, including steel and aluminum.

###

This research was funded by the Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation. Study co-author A.T.M. Golam Sarwar earned his doctoral degree in the course of this work at Ohio State, and is now at Intel.

Contact: Roberto Myers, (614) 292-8439; [email protected]

Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; [email protected]

Media Contact

Pam Frost Gorder
[email protected]
614-292-9475
@osuresearch

http://news.osu.edu

############

Story Source: Materials provided by Scienmag

Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

IMAGE

Stress test finds cracks in the resistance of harmful hospital bugs

April 22, 2021
IMAGE

Among COVID-19 survivors, an increased risk of death, serious illness

April 22, 2021

Study of ‘breakthrough’ cases suggests COVID testing may be here to stay

April 22, 2021

How we know whether and when to pay attention

April 22, 2021

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

POPULAR NEWS

  • IMAGE

    A sturdier spike protein explains the faster spread of coronavirus variants

    44 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 11
  • UofL, Medtronic to develop epidural stimulation algorithms for spinal cord injury

    56 shares
    Share 22 Tweet 14
  • New evidence in search for the mysterious Denisovans

    34 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9
  • Jonathan Wall receives $1.79 million to develop new amyloidosis treatment

    61 shares
    Share 24 Tweet 15

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

VaccinesWeaponryVaccineVirologyUniversity of WashingtonUrogenital SystemWeather/StormsViolence/CriminalsVehiclesVirusUrbanizationZoology/Veterinary Science

Recent Posts

  • Stress test finds cracks in the resistance of harmful hospital bugs
  • Among COVID-19 survivors, an increased risk of death, serious illness
  • Study of ‘breakthrough’ cases suggests COVID testing may be here to stay
  • How we know whether and when to pay attention
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In