NthDegree Technologies Worldwide Inc. is a new-built company located in Arizona which is specialized in lighting applications, solar energy and soft semiconductor. Recently, this company announced a contract signed with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to be responsible of developing “low mass, low power” lighting sources. NthDegree decided to apply their new-developed innovative semiconducting ink into this lighting technology and named it as Nth Light. Currently, NASA is conducting a series tests to Nth Light to assess the safety of this technology. See if it can meet the security requirements of space navigation.
NthDegree proclaimed that they have just invested a new technique which can transfer semiconducting ink onto bases. According to the disclosed information, this semiconducting ink includes functional components, like diodes and transistors made by traditional wafer.
NthDegree also reported the solid-state lighting (SSL) devices in the SID conference held in June this year. This device can produce and disperse micro LED lights within adhesives on the edge of standard InGaN.
It is also proclaimed that this technical method can form economies of scale. According to one researcher of NthDegree, a flexographic press with a width of 60cm, if this machine can print 75m per one minute and can work 20 hours each day, after a continuous work of 300 days, the consumed energy is equivalent to 250 million A-19 bulbs. Since costs by using this new technique are really low, the company indicated that the retail price should be similar to the existing CFL bulbs. It is said that some functional electronic devices can be manufactured by this printing technology without considering the packaging process of electrical components. Components printed directly onto substrates can also enable manufacturers to design more powerful lighting devices. They are planning to create LED space lights by using this printing technology.
NthDegree has attached related information of panel lights (60cm x 120cm) on its website. The average luminous flux is around 5,000lm, equipped with 100W power suppliers. This type of panels (used semiconducting ink technology) was developed to replace traditional fluorescent lamps, which have higher lighting efficiency and have a wider range of color temperatures. The average service life is larger than 50,000 hours. It is announced that in the next 10 years, this company will concentrate on the research and development of LED space lights.