Lighting is poised to be the next great solid-state frontier. The technology is already making inroads in the markets for architectural lighting, signage, and specialty residential and retail applications.

Take an LED that produces intense, blue light. Coat it with a thin layer of special microscopic beads called quantum dots. And you have what could become the successor to the venerable light bulb.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made GaAs-based LEDs more than seven times brighter by etching nanoscale grooves in a surrounding cavity to guide scattered light in one direction. The novel nanostructure, which may have applications in areas such as in biomedical imaging where LED brightness is crucial, is described in the July 17 issue of Applied Physics Letters.*