Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-G) and Imperial College London (ICL) in the UK, have developed a customized’meta-grid’ of nanoparticles.
The research team has developed a nanoparticle ‘meta-grid’, which needs to be placed at an appropriate location within the epoxy casing of the LEDs, for improving light output from LEDs.
Meta-grid or metamaterial grid is a specifically patterned array of nanoparticles acting as metamaterials, capable of exhibiting extraordinary optical properties. This could give light-emitting diodes (LEDs) brighter, energy-efficient and durable. According to the study published in ‘Light: Science & Applications’ journal.
“With the continuous advancement in nanofabrication technology, it is now possible to fabricate metallic nanoparticles that have a very narrow spread,” DebabrataSikdar, Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, said in a statement.
The technique has depicted optimal design parameters for such meta-grids to produce greater light output over any narrow/broadband emission spectrum. At the same time, boosting LEDs’ lifetime by eliminating heating of the chip from unwanted reflections within the chip. The technique is deployable by itself or in combination with other existing techniques applied for increasing LED’s efficiency.
The entire original theoretical framework required for the invention has been developed in-house. Now it is exactlytested against standard commercial simulation tools.
As soon as possible, The research team plans to fabricate a prototype device within one year and corroborate their theoretical predictions with experiments. The theoretical models, developed by the team, allow finding out the optimal conditions for the design of the nanoparticle ‘meta-grid’ layer.
The research team believes that the work will certainlyhave a global impact on the versatile LED-based applications. Furthermoreit will reachthe marketmulti-billion-dollarworld widely.
“In this invention, the effects of the ‘meta-grid’ on the standard commercial LEDs, based on group III-V materials are demonstrated,” Sikdar said.