Description:
Reference #: 00702
The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for this technology
Background:
Currently inefficient incandescent lighting (efficiency ~2%) is being replaced by fluorescent lighting (compact fluorescent lights CFL at an efficiency ~10%) to reduce our carbon footprint and be able to continue to use fossil fuels as raw materials for the chemical industry, where non-fossil alternatives are much more difficult to develop as viable economical alternatives.
Invention Description:
The subject invention is a self-activating phosphor Sr3AlO4-xF that can be made emitting in the green (CIE coordinates 0.2334, 0.5505) and by tailoring the defect structure of the Sr3AlO4-xF1-y can be moved to the bluish-white part of the CIE diagram when exposed to 254nm UV light (CIE 0.2429, 0.3387). This can be achieved WITHOUT any doping of activators into the host lattice and represent an enormous cost-saving factor for lamp manufacturers.
Potential Applications:
The material Sr3AlO4-xF1-y has an approximate Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) close to 10,000K-the upper limit of what an analog TV screen has. Due to its low-cost starting reagents and simple manufacturing conditions, it is the view of the inventors that members of this material (with different values of x and y) can be useful in this and other applications where “white light” is required.
The material in this invention can also be a very good value proposition for backlights in liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panels. These backlights are fluorescent tubes containing a low-mercury vapor to create as one excitation 254nm UV light. The inside of this backlight is coated with a “white light” phosphor.
Advantages and Benefits:
Increase in efficiency which would translate into commensurate energy savings and the provision of a technology platform that would make it possible for light-emitting diodes (LED) technologies to make significant in-roads into the market