Light Polymers, a nanochemistry startup based in San Francisco, was featured in Chemical & Engineering News with a focus on their lyotropic materials technology. Light Polymers unique lyotropic formulations are being employed in various applications from circular polarizers for OLED displays to highly efficient photonic films. Chemical & Engineering News spoke with a number of Light Polymers team members about lyotropic materials and the various applications being developed by the Light Polymers team.
Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) is a weekly magazine published by the American Chemical Society. C&EN editors and reporters based in Europe, the U.S., and Asia cover science and technology, business and industry, government and policy, education, and employment aspects of the chemistry field. C&EN Online offers Latest News, supplementary material to C&EN print articles, back issues of the magazine since 1998, and special features such as Reel Science, NanoFocus, RSS feeds, and blogs.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
The materials are also ideal for suspending particles like the phosphors used in LEDs. The suspension is used to make a thin film that aids in the down conversion of light, in which blue light is converted into white.
In conventional LEDs, the phosphors are suspended in silicone. Marc McConnaughey, Light Polymers’ CEO, says lyotropic liquid crystals can suspend the phosphors more compactly and precisely than silicone can. The result is 25% greater conversion of light.
“You can reduce these optical and thermal losses, but more importantly, we can tune the film to emit to certain spectra,” he says.
Such tuning can make for high-quality lights like those used in museums. Or light can be tuned to the red frequencies that are becoming popular for skin treatments.
The company has plans to release a series of lighting products under the Crystallin brand. One of its first products, the GrowBlade for indoor horticulture, debuted at an agricultural technology event in New York City in September.
