

"230%" electrically-ultra-efficient LED from MIT - xtacy
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/09/230-percent-efficient-leds

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BjoernKW
Couldn't such LEDs be used as incredibly efficient heat sinks? I presume that
once it's possible to deploy those LEDs on large scale they should be much
more efficient than traditional cooling devices.

Moreover, they might be used for energy extraction. The heat extracted from
the surroundings is converted into light, which in turn could be converted
into electricity.

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helveticaman
"However, while MIT's diode puts out more than twice as much energy in photons
as it's fed in electrons, it doesn't violate the conservation of energy
because it appears to draw in heat energy from its surroundings instead."

This actually sounds legit. Keep in mind, 69 picowatts is next to nothing, so
it's anybody's guess whether this will scale.

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jonmrodriguez
A better title might be "new LED cools its surroundings" or "new LED partially
powered by lattice vibrations".

It's the cooling effect that's really interesting, not some terminology-
abusing claim to >100% efficiency.

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mc32
Yeah, this sounds really good.

Unlike incandescent lights which heat up their surroundings via heat
dissipation, this one would cool its surroundings via heat absorption and
conversion to light.

