WASHINGTON (TIP): Researchers have created the world’s thinnest light bulb using graphene, an atomically thin and perfectly crystalline form of carbon, as a filament.

Led by Young Duck Kim, a postdoctoral research scientist in James Hone’s group at Columbia University School of Engineering, a team of scientists from Columbia, Seoul National University, and Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science said that they have demonstrated — for the first time — an on-chip visible light source using graphene as a filament.

They attached small strips of graphene to metal electrodes, suspended the strips above the substrate, and passed a current through the filaments to cause them to heat up.”We’ve created what is essentially the world’s thinnest light bulb,” said Hone, Wang Fon-Jen professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia Engineering.

“This new type of ‘broadband’ light emitter can be integrated into chips and will pave the way towards the realisation of atomically thin, flexible, and transparent displays, and graphene-based on-chip optical communications,” said Hone.