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Anna Salleh

Light-emitting diodes that give a warm glow to your home or office will be available within a few years, say Swedish researchers working with nanowires.

Professor Lars Samuelson and team at Lund University are aiming to produce devices that do not cast as harsh a light as existing LEDs, and that are more efficient and longer lasting.

A forest of nanowires

LEDs are often used in small applications like torches, bicycle lights and reading lamps

because defects in the crystal structure of the semiconductors limit their efficiency when scaled up

Samuelson's team have found a way to produce what they say are defect-free LEDs

The researchers have been making LEDs out of forests of long, thin nanowires grown from gallium arsenide and indium gallium phosphate.

these nanowires

produce "highly perfect structures"

they will last longer and be useful in large-scale home and office lighting, with an efficiency of around 50%

an incandescent light bulb is only 4% efficient, a compact fluorescent 25%