Rohinni Offers Illumination on Printed LightPaper,Rohinni Offers Illumination on Printed LightPaper

Unless it’s somehow related to your job, is unlikely you’ve ever considered the shape and functionality of a light bulb. Until fairly recently, the basic design of the bulb had remained static for decades. Now, we have these odd, twisting bulbs that environmentalists claim are both greener and longer lasting.

What if light was not restricted to bulbs, or to glass at all? That was the basic question behind Rohinni’s development of LightPaper. Rather than just use LED to create slightly thinner lights, the company has devised a method of rapidly manufacturing a super thin light source that can be stuck on objects like a sticker.

The founders of the company, Cody Peterson and Andrew Huska, previously worked on other high-tech projects. From a company press release:

“Before Cody and Andy launched Rohinni, they successfully built the world's thinnest touch type-able keyboard as a part of their first venture, Pacinian. This caught the attention of Synaptics, a world leader in computer touchpads and touch screens … Synaptics acquired Pacinian, and before you knew it, they had new titles at Synaptics. A year or so into their new roles, Andy and Cody realized they still had that itch to continue to do what they were made for, so they left Synaptics and returned to the drawing board.”

LightPaper takes the “guts” of LED lighting, mixes it with ink, and prints out the results on a substrate. Right now, just beyond the basic development stage of creating LightPaper, Rohinni is in charge of what is printed, on what, and where, but that will change. Potential applications are endless, particularly if, as shown on the Rohinni website, the technology can be made to print on a variety of materials other than paper.

Imagine being able to slap a couple of LightPaper patches on the top of your desk when you needed a little more illumination in the evenings, or combing the process with 3D printed objects to build glowing objets d’art. It would even be possible to replace existing lamps by simply printing Rohinni’s mix directly on to lamp shades, or the interior of ceiling units.

Below you’ll find a video about LightPaper.

Sources: Rohinni, Phys.org, Coeur d' Alene Press