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The San Diego Union-Tribune Photonics
lets there be light without a hot bulb The average incandescent light bulb does its job – it sheds light, after all – but in doing so, it wastes 90 percent of the energy going into it as heat. Even high-efficiency fluorescent bulbs fritter away more than half of their power in unneeded heat. But what if you could salvage this lost energy and harness it? Anything that could do so would be like a medieval alchemist's philosopher's stone, which in legend could turn lead to gold. Instead of taking 90 cents out of every dollar spent on lighting and essentially burning it, you put money back in your pocket, not to mention reduce the demand on natural resources and the chances of an energy shortage. A new kind of philosopher's stone that can transmute heat to light is on the horizon, said physicist Shawn-Yu Lin of Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M. "Rather than use a 100-watt light bulb, all you would need in future would be a 10-watt bulb." |