Saturday, October 13, 2007

DNA increases LED power


Andrew Steckl has revealed an intriguing new piece of evidence that nature has more power than humans have yet to imagine. His work on photonics at the University of Cincinnati has focuses on intensifying the light produced by LEDs with biological material.
“Biological materials have many technologically important qualities — electronic, optical, structural, magnetic,” says Steckl. “DNA has certain optical properties that make it unique. It allows improvements in one to two orders of magnitude in terms of efficiency, light, brightness — because we can trap electrons longer.”
His big idea- using salmon sperm. His main focus is on creating products that are more environmentally sustainable. This material is a readily available bi-product of the fishing industry, and is thrown away by the ton.
Steckl believes that the use of biological materials has the potential to improve all our current electronic technologies, plus close the loop between industry and waste.
For the original article link here
For the hype at Tree Hugger and ignorant comments from the peanut gallery link here