Physicists have generated extra-bright beams of infrared light from single-walled carbon nanotubes. The new technique is more efficient than many existing methods for producing light and could have applications in optoelectronics.

The IBM-Duke team found that when certain voltages were applied, the nanotubes emitted infrared light localized in a nano-sized area. This resulted in a very bright source of light: a 3 milliamp current was able to produce about 100,000 times more photon flux than a large-area LED.

It is possible to tune the emission wavelength, producing either infrared or visible light, by using nanotubes with different diameters.