Researchers have created a "solid-state lamp" that emits high-energy ultraviolet (UV) light in the shortest wavelengths that have ever been detected.
The wavelengths are from 140 to 220 nanometers, which is considered vacuum UV light, an American Institute of Physics news release reported. This type of light can propagate inside of a vacuum, but is consumed by oxygen.
This light could lead to "smaller, safer, longer lasting, low power lamps for industrial applications," the news release reported.
UV lights are often used for applications such as sterilizing medical equipment and cleaning semiconductor substrates. When the light hits molecules containing oxygen it generates "reactive oxygen radicals" which have the ability to destroy microbes.
Today's UV lamps are extremely large and pricey and they also require a lot of energy to run. When the lamps are used they typically do not last for very long and contain dangerous toxic gases.
These new lamps are made from "solid-state phosphor" made from KMgF3. This is relatively easy to make and does not involve toxic gases.The method also eliminates the need for rare Earth elements that can cause the cost of the device to skyrocket.
One of the researchers' biggest challenges was safely fabricating the phosphor using fluoride, which is "a toxic, corrosive and potentially dangerous chemical to handle," the news release reported.
The team could have done this by using an "inflow of gaseous fluoride" to coat the surface of the extremely-thin KMgF3. The team decided to take a safer route by employing a pulsed laser deposition to layer the chemicals onto the thin surface.
"Our lamp is a promising light source in terms of lifetime, size, heat conduction and stability," Shingo Ono of the Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan, who led the research, said in the news release. "[It] has the potential to be an excellent alternate light source to low-pressure mercury lamps, excimer lamps and deuterium lamps."
