Sundays with TED: Innovation at the Speed of Light
February 13, 2011
Environmental consciousness and TED go hand in hand. So, it’s no surprise that sustainability is one of the overarching themes of this year’s conference, as the TEDxUofM strives to make the event as environmentally friendly as possible.
But, the focus on promoting a sustainable mindset shouldn’t be limited to April 8th, and, if professor Jinsang Kim and research associate Kangwon Lee have their way, it won’t.
Along with other faculty from the Michigan Science and Engineering staff, the two men have discovered unique qualities of aromatic carbonyls and a practical application for this polysyllabic mouthful: material to produce the world’s first purely organic light emitters.
In contrast to the current industry standard – metallic fluorescence – the new compound is phosphorescent, which means that it is capable of producing light just as luminous as its metal counterparts, but without the extra waste that comes along with producing the shiny material. And if the environmental impact wasn’t enough, the organic compound, vis à vis the organometallic standard, will be be significantly cheaper to produce in large quantities.
While light from the new compound appears white to the naked eye, it actually radiates a mixture of “radiate blue, green, yellow and orange after absorbing ultraviolet light.”