Lighting company Vu1 (formerly Telegen) announced a new technology for low power lighting this week: Electron Stimulated Luminescence™. The new technology is remarkably similar in principle to the old cathode ray tube TVs. The bulb generates a stream of electrons that excite a phosphor coating on the inside of the bulb’s glass. That has the effect of making the entire surface of the bulb glow.

Incandescent bulbs run current through a filament, heating it to produce. CFLs send current through mercury vapour to generate UV light which excites the phosphor coating on the inside of the glass. LEDs use special semiconductors which emit light when excited electrically. Vu1’s technology does away with the filament (which is the achilles heel of the incandescent bulb, resulting in the eventual failure of the bulb when all the heating and cooling causes the filament to break), which should improve the lifetime.

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