Turning Red LEDs Blue with Upconversion

Increasingly, LEDs light up everyday life. They are an energy-saving, drop-in replacement for ordinary lightbulbs, but they also have creative applications, like mood lighting for aircraft cabins. However, creating blue LEDs which are efficient and durable remains a challenging. As presented in a recent publication, new theoretical models show that the superior qualities of red LEDs could be used to generate blue light. The spontaneous conversion of red light to blue light is unusual because blue lies in a higher energy region of the spectrum of light. However, it can occur in upconversion systems, which are a fast-moving field of solar energy research. Author Laszlo Frazer of the Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science stated, “while upconversion for solar cells is exciting, using upconverion for lighting is easier because you are not limited by the power of the sun.”