Project TOPLESS helps save juice

Get your mind out of the gutter, Project TOPLESS brings excitement of a different kind. TOPLESS here is an acronym for “Thin Organic Polymeric Light Emitting Semi-conductor Surfaces”, where the ultimate goal of this project is to develop “high quality white light generating single polymer, and efficient large area single pixel device architectures.” This is not some cheap effort at keeping energy usage low in millions and millions of lamps used around the world each night, especially when it is a three year, £3.3 million project financed 50% by the UK government and 50% by a consortium of Thorn Lighting (UK largest lighting company), Sumation UK and the University of Durham (Department of Physics and Chemistry). The 3.5-watt prototype uses up to 14 times less juice compared to an halogen desk lamp!