UCLA Develops First White-Light Emitting Buckyball Device
University of California (UCLA; Los Angeles; 202-872-4445) researchers have observed the first known example of a buckyball derivative emitting a white light. Normally, buckyballs quench light. Although the finding is currently deemed an academic curiosity, as only a minimal amount of light is emitted, some believe that the buckyball derivative could be used in lieu of new organic materials to illuminate rooms.
About The Finding
Research Publication
About The Finding (Back to Top)
The UC scientists modified the electronic structure of the buckyballs to allow them to emit light. Practically speaking, the efficiency of the buckyball derivative is extremely low, as only a fraction of a percent of the electric power that is supplied is converted to light. Buckyballs are also relatively expensive. Because of these two facts, UCLA chemist Fred Wudl, one of the discoverers of the light-emitting buckyballs, believes that the finding does not have a practical application.
Wudl's co-discoverer disagrees. "Such white light devices might ultimately be used to illuminate rooms by covering a ceiling or wall with the material," says Yves Rubin, the UCLA chemist who first made the buckyball device.
At the moment, however, it seems that the companies working on simpler organic materials have a big head start on such applications, Wudl says. It is relatively easy to produce small molecule or polymeric organic materials that emit orange, yellow, and green light; deep blue and white light are possible, but a bit more difficult. Several companies are now developing organic light emitting devices that they hope to use in products ranging from cell phone displays to automobile bumpers.
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Other co-authors on the paper are Kate Hutchison and June Gao of the University of California (Santa Barbara), and Georg Schick of UCLA.
The finding will appear in the June 16, 1999, edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (ACS). A nonprofit organization with a membership of nearly 159,000 chemists and chemical engineers, the ACS publishes scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences, and provides educational, science policy, and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, DC, and Columbus, OH.
For more information, call ACS at 202-872-4445.