Selective filter could revive the incandescent light bulb

The development, from Purdue University and MIT, is said to ‘recycle’ infrared photons and improves efficiency.

"The biggest disadvantage of incandescent lighting has been a lack of energy efficiency,” said Peter Bermel, an assistant professor in Purdue University's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "The way incandescent lights work is that you heat a filament to a certain temperature and it emits a broad band of light, but only about one in 20 photons or so is actually visible to the human eye; the other 19 photons are essentially just wasted as heat."

Researchers have now developed a potential solution in the form of a new type of filter to recycle wasted photons that is made out of alternating layers of materials including silicon dioxide and tantalum dioxide.

This approach could improve incandescent lighting efficiency by 10 times, making it more efficient than commercial compact fluorescent and LED lighting, Bermel said in a statement.