Use of "alchemy" to develop warm tone LED Award for Science

Recently, the German team of scientists have developed a way to make the original blue light emitting LED lights show a warm tone. This approach can revolutionize efficient LED, and it has been nominated for a scientific award for the team.

In recent years, LED has been recognized by the public because of its high luminous efficiency and environmental friendliness. However, LED blue light has hindered the further use of it. Now, the German team of scientists use a light-emitting material to add warm colors to the LED lighting, making it more suitable for home.

The luminescent material is a silicon nitride compound that was invented at PHILPS labs. One of the inventors, Peter Schmidt, said: "this light-emitting material can be made into a thin layer directly on the LED semiconductor. A part of the blue light passes through the thin layer, and the other part of the luminous material is converted into green light and red light. "

The invention has helped Peter Schmidt and Wolfgang Schnick win the German future award nomination. The final results will be announced on December 4th.

Wolfgang, a chemist at the University of Munich, tries to use Schnick to convert the blue LED into white light. But there are problems in the industrialization of this technology -- the lack of silicon nitrogen compounds. Although there are many compounds of silicon and oxygen in nature, there are few silicon nitride. In order to produce a large amount of silicon nitride, Schmidt decided to use alchemy method to find the answer.

They will be coal and other materials mixed into a gray material, then put it in the oven. Schmidt said: "we do not expect it to produce any magical effect. As a result, on the second day a glowing orange mass came out, and we knew that the method worked. "

Now, Schmidt is looking into the bedroom lights in the future, he hopes to develop a digital control lights, according to human physiological needs to adjust the spectrum. He said: "when we see the blue light, our brain will produce a lot of serotonin, it will wake up the brain. Too many blue light will lead to sleep problems, and the use of color controlled lamps, we can according to their own biological regulation of light. "