Nano LED Lighting
LG Lex8 LED 3d TV incorporating Nano LED Lighting
Nano technology developments are quickly leading to LED lights as bright as ordinary bulbs.
LEDs are very energy-efficient and 70% of the energy is converted to light, however just 20% of that light escapes. A high refractive index at the LED-air interface means the light is reflected straight back inside. Some LEDs are made from gallium nitride, perhaps the most optically-awkward semiconductor material of all.
Some of this extra light can be extracted by making tiny holes all over the surface of the LED. At 200 nanometres (nm) in diameter, they are 400 times narrower than a human hair but only penetrate 100nm into the LED's surface. Spaced out at 300nm apart, 160 holes would fit across a hair's width. Although a single LED chip may be around one third of a square millimetre (0.3mm by 0.3mm), that's enough space for hundreds of thousands of holes.
The process of creating these tiny holes can be expensive, however nanoengineers have found effective ways to imprint the holes into LEDs at a far greater speed, and at a much lower cost. Nanoimprint [lithography] seems to be the most suitable technology for this.
An early practical use for these LED devices is likely to be backlights within LCD TVs, replacing cold cathode tubes and helping make thin TVs even thinner.
LG Electronics LG LEX8 is the world's slimmest full LED 3D TV. At just 0.88cm thin (and a 1.25cm bezel) the LG LEX8 provides the sharpest 3D images on the market.
The minimal design and high quality picture is achieved with LG's NANO Lighting Technology incorcorporating an extremely thin film printed with minuscule dots positioned in front of a full array of LEDs which disperse light more evenly and effectively across the screen, creating pictures that are clearer.
The LEX8 is LG's first television using nano technology.