Scientists made LEDs 60% brighter by copying firefly lanterns

Source - https://www.pnas.org/content/109/46/18674

I fully recognize that the above image is a bit detailed. I'd rather embed the video I think is here, about halfway down the page. It worked when I first viewed the article a few months ago, but by the time I got around to posting, the video seems to have died.

Such is life, eh?

Speaking of 'such is life', the article today - written for popular consumption from Gizmodo or the original research from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or even a middle ground from phys.org- shows a great example of biomimcry. A team of Korean scientists wondered why firefly bulbs were so bright, so they headed to the electron microscope to check out the structures of the light-producing organs.

Turns out the organs were shingled, allowing light to transmit from the top and also the edge of the surface. When the scientists mimicked the structure, their LED was 60% brighter than an equivalent using an unshingled structure.

Technically, "[t]he bioinspired OLEDs clearly showed side-enhanced super-Lambertian emission with a wide-viewing angle" (from acs.org).

I would've said that first, but it's such a simple sentence, I wasn't sure you'd read onward if I opened with that.