Engineers at the University of Washington have created world's thinnest LED (light emitting diode), that's just 3 atoms thick! Though thin, the new LED is mechanically very strong and can be folded. Xiaodong Xu, professor of materials science at the UW believes that it can be used in future gadgets and electronic devices; from flat-screen displays to wearable computers. Currently, the LEDs used in electronic circuits are 3 dimensional and about 10-20 times thicker than the ones developed by Xu and team at UW. Though the new LEDs are about 10000 times smaller than the thickness of human hair; the light emitted by them can be seen by the equipments used for measurements.


The creators of the new LEDs believe that this technological advancement is a big leap in the miniaturisation of technology. All the things possible with current generation of 3D LEDs can be done using the new 2D LEDs. The researchers used thin, flat sheets of tungsten diselenide, part of the 2D material family. The researchers have published a video that shows the techniques they used to isolate single layer of graphene. Check it out below-

One of the biggest application of this technology would be in optic-interconnects in nano-scale computer chips. It would allow electronics manufacturers to take care of problems of power wastage and achieve better efficiency. The research team is currently working on developing efficient ways to create these LEDs. Read about the research on the official news portal, linked below.

Source: Scientists build thinnest-possible LEDs to be stronger, more energy efficient | UW News