News

22 January 2007

 

Cyberlux claims hybrid organic/inorganic lighting better than LEDs

Cyberlux Corp of Research Triangle Park, Durham, NC, USA intends to introduce lighting products created through the combination of the hybrid organic/inorganic white and multi-color lighting technology acquired from the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) with the Scattered Photon Extraction (SPE) technology acquired from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Cyberlux aims to commercialize the resulting proprietary lighting technology as Hybrid White Light (HWL) and Hybrid Multi-color Light (HML), which should yield a lower-cost, more energy-efficient lighting source for consumer, commercial and military uses than currently available in solid-state LED solutions, the firm claims.

Traditional LED lighting sources produce light after a solid-state material emits a photon through a phosphor downconversion material to create white and multi-color light. The phosphor is a thin film on a substrate; the substrate has to be placed in close proximity to the semiconductor. Positioning the phosphor is an expensive steps in fabricating an LED.

With HWL and HML, the phosphor is replaced with a layer of less costly, more efficient polymer or organic film downconversion material. In addition, the SPE technology further improves the light output and efficacy of the resulting light source, the firm claims. The SPE packages place the down-conversion materials, such as quantum dots, at locations remote from the LEDs. The optic surrounding the LED’s die is shaped to extract a significant portion of the down-converted white light that is otherwise absorbed and lost as waste heat within traditional LED packages. “The SPE technology increases light output and efficacy of white LEDs, and could play an important role in the evolution of white LEDs for lighting in homes and offices,” said Nadarajah Narendran, director of research at RPI’s Lighting Research Center.

Because of the fundamental difference in the nature of the HWL and HML technologies, Cyberlux intends to broadly market the technology across large lighting industry market segments through OEM licensing and Cyberlux product solutions for direct and indirect task and accent lighting applications, indoor/outdoor down-lighting applications, residential and office lighting applications, and military and Homeland Security applications.

“By combining the two technologies acquired from these leading solid-state lighting research institutes, we are positioned to introduce breakthrough lighting products to the entire lighting industry,” claims president and chief operating officer Mark D. Schmidt.

* This month Cyberlux acquired the worldwide exclusive rights to patent

5,966,393 ‘Hybrid Light-Emitting Sources for Efficient and Cost Effective White Lighting and for Full-Color Applications’ from UCSB through a restricted stock transaction involving the acquisition of Hybrid Lighting Technologies Inc, a subsidiary of UTEK Corp (a finance company focused on technology transfer). The transaction includes capital for the acceleration of the technology commercialization. The technology patent defines the method and practice for creating a white or multi-colored lighting source by combining the photoluminescence of polymers and/or organic films with photon emissions from a solid-state inorganic light source. The principle inventors include UCSB professors Alan Heeger (a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) and Steven DenBaars (co-director of the Solid-State Lighting Center), who will advise Cyberlux on the hybrid organic/inorganic lighting technology commercialization.

Previously, in mid-November 2006, Cyberlux acquired the worldwide exclusive rights to the patents for the Scattered Photon Extraction technology and methods developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, NY, USA, via the acquisition of UTEK subsidiary SPE Technologies Inc. The SPE technology enables light-emitting sources to operate at a higher luminous efficacy where traditional phosphor, or downconversion materials such as photoluminescence polymers and/or organic films as defined by patent 5,966,393, are placed at locations remote from the photon-emitting solid-state inorganic light source. Specifically, the use of the SPE methods result in a greater than 60% improvement in light output and efficacy compared to standard commercial white LEDs.

Visit: http://www.cyberlux.com