OLED has come a long way in its short lifespan of being on the market of just a few years. Mark Thompson, professor of chemistry at USC, and Stephen Forrest, of the University of Michigan, have blossomed fruit from a 13-year research project they conducted together. Instead of emitting a single color, as current OLED’s do, they now can have many different ones shine together. One “color” the team was going for was white. With OLED’s low heat and extreme life span, one can kiss off the light bulb of Edison and say hello to things such as walls, curtains, and even windows lighting up a room.

Windows? Sure, OLED’s are transparent and thus can be implanted into a window. During the day when the OLED is off, in comes the natural sun light. At night, flick a switch and emulate the day sun coming in from the same window. Brilliant!

“With a future emphasis on manufacturing technology, this structure may provide an important, low-cost and efficient means that will replace incandescent lighting in many different applications,” Forrest wrote in a recent paper.

Creating these new light “bulbs” needs to be efficient and cheap which Thompson believes can be achieved. If so, think of the possibilities of future lighting. The Christmas tree will never be the same…

[Via Gizmag]

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