Very Bright Light from Very Odd Source

A compound that can be used on faces or babies' bottoms also has major safety advantages over fluorescent bulbs, which happen to contain toxic mercury. Adding sulfur to ultra-fine powders of commonplace zinc oxide at about 1,000 degrees centigrade allows the preparation to convert invisible ultraviolet light into a remarkably bright and natural form of white light.

Duke adjunct physics professor Henry Everitt, chemistry professor Jie Liu and their graduate student John Foreman are now probing the solid state chemistry and physics of various combinations of sulfur and zinc oxide to deduce an optimal design for a new kind of illumination. Everitt and Liu have applied for a patent on using the preparations as a light source. ?EUR??,,????'?????<