Scientists in Austria and Germany have developed a new type of material that could replace the green component used in most modern LED lights, potentially making lighting technology cheaper, more efficient, and less dependent on hard-to-source raw materials.
White LED lights, which are now used everywhere from homes to smartphones, rely on special glowing materials called phosphors.
These phosphors convert blue LED light into other colors—especially green and red—to create bright white light.
For years, the green color has mainly come from a class of materials with a structure known as “garnet.” While effective, these materials require high temperatures to produce and depend on certain rare elements that may become harder or more expensive to obtain.
Researchers from the University of Innsbruck, along with partners in Schwabmünchen and Düsseldorf, have now created an entirely new class of green-emitting phosphors that could rival today’s industry standard.
The breakthrough was led by chemist Kilian Rießbeck in the research group of Professor Hubert Huppertz.
Their work shows that a different chemical recipe—based on lithium, rare-earth elements, oxygen, nitrogen, and silicon—can produce equally strong green light.
One major advantage of the new materials is that they can be made at lower temperatures, which could reduce energy use and manufacturing costs.
This is especially important at a time when energy prices are high and supply chains for critical minerals are uncertain. Having alternative materials could make the lighting industry more resilient.
The team focused on designing a new crystal structure that could hold “activator” atoms—rare-earth elements that actually produce the light. By carefully arranging oxygen and nitrogen atoms around these activators, the researchers created conditions that allow the material to glow efficiently.
They successfully produced 13 variations of the new compound, demonstrating that the design is flexible and can be adapted for different needs.
To understand how well the new phosphors perform, scientists conducted detailed tests using advanced light-measurement techniques. These experiments showed that the materials can emit strong, stable green light and could reach very high efficiency if used in commercial products.
Importantly, the researchers also built a prototype LED using the new phosphor in collaboration with lighting company ams OSRAM. The prototype performed competitively with existing LED technologies, proving that the material is not just a laboratory curiosity but a realistic candidate for real-world use.
If further developed and produced on a large scale, these lithium-based phosphors could help reduce the environmental footprint of LED manufacturing and lessen dependence on specific raw materials. The discovery also opens the door to exploring entirely new families of light-emitting materials.
As the world continues shifting toward energy-efficient lighting, innovations like this could play a key role in making LEDs more sustainable, affordable, and adaptable for the future.
