Title: QD Vision’s Quantum Dots Warm Up the Market for LED Lighting - Xconomy

Industry sector: Energy efficiency

QD Vision’s Quantum Dots Warm Up the Market for LED Lighting
Xconomy - Jukka Perttu 3/30/10

Everyone knows that traditional incandescent lamps are inefficient and energy-wasting. But LEDs, one of the technologies vying to take their place, produce light that feels harsh and cold by comparison, leading many customers to shy away from them.

Watertown, MA-based QD Vision thinks it can use its “quantum dot” technology to solve both problems—energy waste and LEDs’ unpleasant color—and it’s about to get a chance to test that belief in the marketplace.

Quantum dots are tiny crystals of semiconductor material that emit light when excited by light or electricity. QD Vision, a six-year-old MIT spinoff, has come up with a way to apply thin films containing the quantum dots to the external faces of conventional LEDs. That converts the harsh LED light into something warmer and more pleasing, similar to the light produced by incandescent bulbs, without sacrificing the high energy efficiency typical of LEDs.

According to QD Vision, LEDs processed with quantum dots are roughly six times more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs, and over three times more efficient than halogen lamps with comparable color quality. Converting all incandescent lighting in the U.S. to LED lighting could reduce the nation’s total electrical usage for lighting by a third, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Read the full story at Xconomy.