Incandescents may not become obsolete after all

With all the new developments in CFL, LED and HID technology and the fact that countries are lining up to ban them, it's seemed certain that incandescents are on a death march. But wait! What if traditional bulbs could be made just as efficient as CFLs and keep their cheap price tag?

That's what scientists at the University of Rochester have discovered is possible and, yes, it involves lasers. A team of researchers have come up with a process that makes a 100-watt bulb consume less energy than a 60-watt bulb by creating nano- and micro-scale structures on the tungsten filament. The structures make the tungsten more effective at radiating light and the bulb much more efficient.

The structures are made on the filament by an ultra-intense femto-second laser pulse that lasts only quadrillionths of a second. The power of that minute burst of laser is equivalent to the entire grid of North America, yet the laser can be powered by a wall outlet, meaning implementing these lasers into manufacturing should be a simple task.

The process can be used not only to make the light brighter, but to also change the hue of the light by manipulating those nano-structures. If this process is commercialized, all those who want the efficiency of CFLs, but hate the color and price could finally have their perfect bulb.

via University of Rochester