Fireflies have a neat trick for conserving light. Turns out, it could work for LEDs, too.
Posted 01.09.2013 at 10:01 am
6 Comments
Fireflies In The Forest
Wikimedia Commons
Sometimes, a trick gets pulled off better in nature than it does in a laboratory. That might be the case with new research claiming fireflies' unique lanterns can be reverse-engineered for LED lights, making the bulbs as much as 55 percent more efficient.
We've seen scientists get the idea to mimic the insect's chemical reaction, but this project deals with their also-impressive structure. This is how the researchers--a team from Belgium, France, and Canada--explained the process in a statement:
Fireflies create light through a chemical reaction that takes place in specialized cells called photocytes. The light is emitted through a part of the insect's exoskeleton called the cuticle. Light travels through the cuticle more slowly than it travels through air, and the mismatch means a proportion of the light is reflected back into the lantern, dimming the glow. The unique surface geometry of some fireflies' cuticles, however, can help minimize internal reflections, meaning more light escapes to reach the eyes of potential firefly suitors.
With help from scanning electron microscopes, the team took a deep look at the internal structure of fireflies from the genus Photuris and found scales on the cuticles in a "factory roof shape." (Think slanted shingles.) Computer simulations showed how those cuticles helped tone down the internal-reflection problem. There's something else, the researchers realized, that has the same problem: human-made lights.
Photuris Scales: Optics Express
So the team took a gallium nitride LED, added a coat of light-sensitive material, then used lasers to recreate the roof shape they saw in the fireflies. Voila, they report in two papers today, out in the journal Optics Express: an LED that is up to 55 percent better at its job.
The team admits it's not the first time nature-inspired techniques aped by humans have improved LEDs, but they also claim this is the biggest increase in efficiency ever gained with a technique like it. Next up: reverse-engineering a different species of firefly that might be even more efficient.
6 Comments
To comment, please Login.
Popular Tags
Science
|
|
|
|
|
|
June 2013: American Energy Independence
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.
Popular on Popsci
Most Commented
Science
- Scientists Create First Cloned Human Embryo
- State Drops Charges Against High School Student Arrested For Science Experiment
- Space Tourism's Black Carbon Problem
- Giving White People The Illusion Of Darker Skin Makes Them Less Racist
- Cold Fusion Machine Gets Third-Party Verification, Inventor Says
- What Modern Humans Can Learn From The Neanderthals' Extinction
- FYI: Do Wind Farms Make It Less Windy?
- How Do You Make A Painkiller Addiction-Proof?
- Untouched For The Last Billion Years, Water In Canadian Mine Holds Ingredients For Life
- FYI: Could Climate Change Cause More (And Bigger) Tornadoes?
Most Emailed
Science
- Portland, Oregon, Says No To Fluoridation
- Got A Wound? Science Says Rub Some Dirt In It
- Was The Oklahoma City Tornado The Worst In History?
- These Self-Assembling Nanoflowers Are As Beautiful As They Are Tiny
- The Moore, Oklahoma Tornado, From Space
- The Oklahoma Tornado, From Space
- Synthetic Biologists Engineer A Custom Flu Vaccine In A Week
- These Self-Assembling Nanoflowers Are As Beautiful As They Are Tiny
- FEMA's 'Waffle House Index' Rates Moore, Oklahoma, At Disaster Level Yellow
- FYI: Could Climate Change Cause More (And Bigger) Tornadoes?
Most Viewed
Science
- Portland, Oregon, Says No To Fluoridation
- Got A Wound? Science Says Rub Some Dirt In It
- Was The Oklahoma City Tornado The Worst In History?
- These Self-Assembling Nanoflowers Are As Beautiful As They Are Tiny
- The Moore, Oklahoma Tornado, From Space
- The Oklahoma Tornado, From Space
- Synthetic Biologists Engineer A Custom Flu Vaccine In A Week
- These Self-Assembling Nanoflowers Are As Beautiful As They Are Tiny
- FEMA's 'Waffle House Index' Rates Moore, Oklahoma, At Disaster Level Yellow
- FYI: Could Climate Change Cause More (And Bigger) Tornadoes?
Online Content Director: Suzanne LaBarre | Email
Senior Editor: Paul Adams | Email
Associate Editor: Dan Nosowitz | Email
Assistant Editor: Colin Lecher | Email
Assistant Editor: Rose Pastore | Email
Contributing Writers:
Rebecca Boyle | Email
Kelsey D. Atherton | Email
Francie Diep | Email
Shaunacy Ferro | Email
Today on PopSci.com
Copyright © 2012 Popular Science
A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Now if only they could tell us how to reverse engineer congress to get them to do something???
Ron Bennett
Fireflies are TRUE magic in my childhood memories..... Happy sigh!
rlb2,
Force feed them a daily diet of Fireflies, so they all can be enlighten and find a solution and perhaps they will all develop magical powers too!
Na... forget it. I like Fireflies to much! ;)
...and he said, "Let there be a more efficient light!" This is awesome and just goes to show how much nature can teach us about technology.
So... I have to admit to being a bit skeptical. It sounds like they said, in a complicated way, "Fireflies' bodies aren't transparent, so they have angled cells to let the light out rather than keeping it all in." But lights already have transparent coverings. So what "55% increase" are they talking about? Diffusing? I'm dubious, until I see some more actual details.
Oh, and is this specific only to LEDs, or do other light types benefit as well?
Besides... the team is partly French... not sure how much I trust their logic. =P
Why they don't give evolutionary programs/genetic algorithms (www.talkorigins.org/faqs/genalg/genalg.html) a try?