From left, Jerry Simmons, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Sen. Pete Domenici, Rep. Heather Wilson, Michael Anastasio, Tom Hunter and Sen. Jeff Bingaman

Let There Be New Light

February / March 2007 By: Chris Burroughs Volume 5 Number 1

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A revolution is under way. And no, it's not in some small African nation. Instead, it's in the way the world will soon light houses, office buildings and schools.

Sandia National Laboratories researcher Jerry Simmons says that, "by the year 2025, all incandescent light bulbs will be in museums, with solid state lighting (SSL) being the main light source."

Simmons has been a champion of SSL and semiconductor-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) ever since he became manager of the SSL program at the laboratory. He worked on two-dimensional electron physics in the semiconductor material and device sciences group for 10 years after joining Sandia in 1990 with a new Princeton University Ph.D. in electrical engineering. After being tapped as manager of the same group in 2000, his first job was to write an in-house Grand Challenge funding proposal for improving LEDs through Sandia's Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program.

He discovered his passion.

"I had to learn fast," Simmons says. "But the idea of SSL got me really excited."

Over the past six years, his enthusiasm led Sandia to become a worldwide leader in LEDs development. He even traveled with Senator Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to Japan and Taiwan to learn about those countries' LEDs research. Most recently he led a team that wrote the winning proposal for a DOE virtual Center for Solid State Lighting Research and Development.

The center will be headquartered at Sandia and will receive about $2.6 million of the total funding for research. Other national laboratories that received money and will be participating in the initiative are Oak Ridge and Los Alamos.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman lays out the case for investment in solid-state lighting R&D, noting that 18 percent of all U.S. energy generated—€”valued at some $55 billion—€”goes to lighting homes, offices and factories.

"We believe a set of revolutionary new technologies called solid-state lighting," Bodman said, "offer excellent prospects for meeting our future lighting needs in a less costly, more efficient way than today's incandescent and even fluorescent fixtures.—€¦We at the Department of Energy want to see it fully developed as quickly as possible.

"We also believe that solid-state lighting presents an excellent opportunity for the U.S. to assume a leadership role in an emerging industry that can generate thousands of high-paying, high-quality jobs in the years ahead and help maintain the U.S. economy's strong record of global leadership in growth and job creation."

Senator Bingaman says he hoped the tens of thousands of high-paying jobs that will emerge in this budding industry in the next few years will stay in the U.S. rather than go overseas.

"I see this center as a bridge between fundamental discoveries at DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers and companies that will take these ideas and make them into useable products."

—€”Chris Burroughs

By 2025, DOE expects to develop advanced SSL technologies that are 50 percent more efficient, last longer and are cost-competitive compared to conventional lighting technologies that accurately reproduce sunlight. This SSL nanotechnology research will include scientific efforts to gain more comprehensive knowledge and understanding of nanometer scale phenomena for the specific application of SSL.
Unlike incandescent and fluorescent lamps, solid-state lighting creates light without producing heat. A semi-conducting material converts electricity directly into light, which maximizes the light's energy efficiency. Solid-state lighting includes a variety of light-producing semiconductor devices. SSL includes light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). LEDs are found in all kinds of devices; they form numbers on digital clocks, light up watches, and transmit information from remote controls. Consumers may also see LEDs in brake lights, traffic signals and exit signs. OLED technology is more commonly used commercially, for example in small screens for mobile phones, portable digital music players and digital cameras.