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Scientists aim to switch off light bulbs for good

The end could be nigh for the old-fashioned light bulb. Scientists have developed wafer-thin sheets that fill a room with natural light at the flick of a switch, according to research published today.

The sheets are designed to be transparent but radiate brilliant white light when hooked up to an electricity supply. Because they do not warm up like traditional bulbs they waste far less energy, the researchers say.

Lighting sheets could brighten up homes and offices by being turned into ceiling tiles and wall panels, and even moulded to cover furnishings.

More than 20 percent of electricity used in buildings goes on lighting and nearly half of that powers incandescent bulbs.

The lighting sheets are made from light-emitting plastics which have the potential to be up to five times more efficient than standard bulbs.

"We hope it means the end of the light bulb. We don't really want them, they use an extraordinary amount of energy," said Stephen Forrest, a materials scientist at the University of Michigan.

"The light bulb is ... a 135 or so year-old technology which hasn't been improved much ... it is a sponge for the energy we're producing -- so I'd hope we'd be done with them in the not too distant future," he said.

Forrest and researchers from the University of Southern California managed to build up sheets of light-emitting plastics only a few millionths of a millimeter thick. The sheets are seeded with dyes that light up red, green or blue when an electric current passes through them. Together the colors combine to produce white light.
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