The biggest stadium in America was flooded with a blue hue, filled with ear-splitting cheers from tens of thousands of avid American Football fans. The supporters held up their cell phones, creating an ocean of glittery dots in the stadium.
A video was projected onto a large screen, prompting a loud reaction of cheers; it declared, "This is our team! This is Michigan!"
The atmosphere at Michigan Stadium was intensified on 16 September with the debut of a new visual entertainment system. Bursting, sweeping light displays in a variety of colours marked touchdowns and added excitement to the music.
The University of Michigan team's colors are "maize" (yellow) and blue, and the light show was tailored to coordinate.
"Jake Stocker, the director of game presentation and fan experience at the University of Michigan, affirms that the environment within the stadium is significantly affected," declares.
An additional thrilling aspect of attending a football game that you won't experience while sitting on your sofa.
LEDs are used to create the spectacular illuminated display at Michigan Stadium, like in many other arenas.
Not very long ago, blue LEDs strong enough to light up a stadium as vast as the third biggest in the world would have been regarded as highly advanced. It was only in the 1990s that bright LEDs capable of producing blue light were developed. The scientists behind the invention were eventually honored with the Nobel Prize.
Researchers have asserted that LEDs have the potential to become even less expensive and more energy-saving than their current state. This could have a huge effect on outdoor lighting as well as virtual reality headsets.
At Michigan Stadium, the range of colours is achieved through entertainment lighting systems featuring LED luminaires emitting red (R), green (G), and blue (B), as explained by Brad Schlesselman, a senior research engineer from Musco Lighting, provider of the technology. He further notes that an RGB system can produce a vast range of colours by adjusting the levels of red, blue, and green.
Mr Schlesselman states that an increasing number of high schools across Michigan are looking for colour-changing and theatrical effects in their productions.
Additionally, within the US, towns and cities have been fitting LED lighting to local monuments, such as water towers, to illuminate them with special hues for particular celebrations and special occasions. As an example, in October - which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month - the towers could be lit up pink.
The Las Vegas Sphere, which opened last month, has perhaps the most awe-inspiring use of LED lights. Its exterior can be changed into any conceivable pattern or image using millions of tiny bulbs, and inside, large screens are lit up.
In the 1970s and 80s, LEDs were commonly overlooked as ineffective. Paul Scheidt, the senior product marketing manager at Cree LED - a major producer of LED devices - recalls the widespread attitude towards the devices: "People believed that these costly and dimly-shining light sources would only be suitable for very small applications like a red indicator light or an infrared TV remote."
Engineers were able to produce LEDs that emitted a larger quantity of photons, or light, than previously. LEDs project light when electrons, which hold a negative charge, inside them change from a higher energy level to a lower one. This releases energy that takes the form of light. By utilizing diverse materials, one can adjust the size of the decline (recognized as the bandgap) and the wavelength of the resulting light.
It was tricky to make blue, since gallium nitride, the necessary material for that colour, was hard to fabricate without flaws. However, blue provides a strong, very energetic tone (with a large bandgap), so blue LEDs can be used as a base for other shades in certain types of RGB OLED TVs - the red and green colours then being lit up, initially, by blue LEDs.
White light is created by using blue LEDs as the source, and then adjusting the blue light using phosphors.
Scientists suggest that a new LED technology is on the horizon that could be even more effective.
Stanford University's Dan Congreve and his team are researching LEDs constructed from perovskite crystals, a material frequently found in solar cells. As perovskites are inexpensive and simple to make, as well as being "tuneable" - allowing for one to select their desired color - they could potentially be used in a process where they are mixed into a liquid and then applied to surfaces as luminous layers.
Creating stability in perovskite LEDs is a challenge, as they are prone to breakdowns.
"We crank up and gauge them; they perish swiftly," says Mr Congreve. He goes on to express that he is optimistic this issue can be overcome. As a result of their preliminary experiments, he and his associates have already enhanced the solidity.
John Buckeridge, a materials physicist at University College London, states that, if issues are addressed, perovskite LEDs could be used in numerous types of devices.
In Japan, researchers recently developed a blue LED powered by just a single AA battery supplying 1.47 volts, when usually 4 volts is the minimum requirement. Dr Congreve, who was not involved in the work, commented, "That's cool, as an engineering feat."
The system leverages sophisticated physics to increase the production of photons. Traditional LEDs usually cause the internal components to enter excited states that only result in light emission three-quarters of the time. The Japanese researchers were able to stimulate these excited states to coalesce and generate light while consuming less energy upfront. Their findings were published in a paper in September. is being utilized than ever before.
Technology in businesses is being used to a greater extent than ever before.
According to Keith Strickland, CEO at the British company Plessey Semiconductors, which is collaborating with Meta on virtual/augmented reality tech, extremely bright LEDs are necessary in order to see the images clearly.
However, current OLEDs are not radiant enough, so the company is perfecting micro LEDs--these are individual LEDs in the colors of red, green, and blue, which are much tinier than 20 microns--that's smaller than one-third the width of a human hair.
Dr Strickland states that the colour red is the most difficult to work with on a microscopic level. Micro LEDs tend to be less efficient around the perimeter of the lighting element, which is increased in size due to the minute size of the device, making these issues more visible.
LEDs are rapidly becoming ever-present, however, their evolution is far from over. According to Dr Congreve, “There is still much potential for development” - and illumination, one presumes.
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