Enabling Energy Efficiency

The Solid State Lighting Science Energy Frontier Research Center (SSLS EFRC) at Sandia National Laboratories is working to improve the energy efficiency of the way we light our homes and offices.

Transcript

00:00:20 efficiency efficiency efficiency efficiency so why change to leds well almost 22 percent of the country's electricity is currently used for lighting a roughly 50 billion dollar per year cost to the us consumer we all want to save energy and solid state lighting has the potential to reduce that energy consumption by a

00:00:42 factor of three to six times an incandescent light bulb is about six percent efficient and the department of energy is close to developing leds that are fifty percent efficient in the future leds may reach 70 80 or even 90 percent efficiency the solid state lighting science energy frontier research center at sandia national laboratories collaborates with

00:01:08 partners in industry and academia to work with leds to discover new ways to make them more efficient i'm currently working on studying the defects in green light emitting diodes my main focus is on is on nanowires if we're able to reduce the defect levels and defect defect densities in green light emitting diodes we will be able to improve

00:01:35 white leds nanowires have interesting properties that potentially could be used to create future leds that are say more efficient now i'm on the characterization end where what the results that i see help to influence the change in changes that the materials scientists make what i'm interested in are more like

00:01:55 one-dimensional structures these nanowires are nanorods where we actually grow the device is actually made out of these wires instead of the films being able to influence you know the the fundamental materials properties is essential to improving or lighting in our case on a whole it's

00:02:19 hard to pass up an opportunity i think to work in an area where you can really change you know how we use light in the future the strengths of the efrc as opposed to individual researchers is that it brings together a team of scientists and support people i think with who have pretty much the same common

00:02:38 goal which in this case is improving solid state lighting looking at new materials or improving on what you have just gives you the opportunity to grow as a scientist