LEDs may be the current darling of the lighting world, aquaria included, but that hasn’t stopped the promise of organic light emitting diodes (OLED) from marching on. In September Philips unveiled an AC-powered OLED lamp, last April we saw some concept OLED lamps by Tom Dixon and almost two years ago we heard of a new broad spectrum OLED technology. Now we reefers like it blue and hot on the heels of last year’s 25% efficiency boost in blue OLED, researchers from the University of Michigan have doubled the efficiency of blue organic light emitting diodes.
The new performance boost of the azure blue OLED was accomplished not by some big breakthrough but mostly by using good old fashioned computer modeling to let the silicon tell us the best way to arrange the organic polymer material from which OLEDs are made. Granted, OLEDs are not there yet in terms of efficient light emission, nor in longevity, but even if blue OLEDs can creep into everyday aquarium applications like LEDs did with the original blue LED moonlights, we still want the wafer-thin light shining hotness. The Elos OLED moonlight has been on the market for over two years now, maybe some more entrepreneurial reefers can find some other applications with the current breed of OLED components.
[Engadget via University of Michigan, Photo: mertero, FlickR]
