Cambridge University researchers have found a manufacturing technique that can produce LED’s for as low as £2 ($2.86) and last up to 60 years.

Light-Emitting Diode (LED) will soon replace the Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) and regular tungsten filament bulbs. But it will take some years as current LED manufacturing costs and prices are higher for now.

Cambridge University researchers have come up with a unique way to produce low cost LED’s and these products may come into market sooner than expected.

The LED’s, the researchers have produced is smaller than a penny coin and 12 times more efficient than conventional tungsten bulbs and 3 times more efficient than CFL.

Another advantage is they illuminate fully after they are switched on, there is no time delay like the fluorescent and CFL. And they have no mercury content like CFL and tungsten bulbs, so they are safe to use and dispose.

The researchers believe that their LED technology will cut electricity costs by three-quarters. The new bulbs will help cut carbon dioxide emissions by 40 million tons a year, the amount of electricity produced by an 8 giga watt power station.

The current LED technology uses gallium nitride but their production costs are expensive because the material has to be grown on sapphire wafers. The Cambridge University researchers have found a cheaper way to produce them by growing it on silicon wafers, cutting the costs considerably.

They have released the technology to RFMD in County Durham and hope to produce these low-cost LED’s within the next two years.

Professor Colin Humphreys told Daily Mail:

'This could well be the holy grail in terms of providing our lighting needs for the future... It is our belief they will render current energy-efficiency bulbs redundant.'