Plastic film gets glowing report

A US factory is churning out 'light paper' that could make floor and bedside lamps, wall sconces and nearly every other household lamp obsolete.

The factory is creating an eight-inch wide plastic film treated with chemicals, which is then sealed with a layer of metal foil. When electric current is applied to the resulting sheet, it lights up with a blue-white glow.

The sheets glow with organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs and according to an over-written article on News.com it will change the way we light buildings.

Currently, bulbs are small and bright so they need to be reflected and diffused with lamp shades or frosted glass.

However the OLEDs system uses broad, diffuse light sources provide a gentle glow. The sheets make anything a light source including blinds, wallpaper or the cat.

German lighting designer Ingo Maurer said he has created the first commercially available OLED lamp, and is selling it in a limited edition of 25.

The downside is that it loses half its brightness after 2,000 hours and the OLED panels are only a few inches wide, and made of glass rather than plastic.

But the next step, which will see the light of day in 2010 is to create a machine that can build bigger panels.

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