Chemists developed a way to significantly improve the performance of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) made with perovskite. The journal Nature published the advancement in these hybrid LEDs, which hold potential for a range of uses, including biomedical sensing, low-light imaging and automated facial recognition.

Most previous work in perovskite LEDs has yielded rates of quantum efficiency—the ability to convert electricity to light—within a range of 20–30%.

“Our discovery leads to an efficiency rate closer to 40%. That’s a big jump,” says Letian Dou, senior author of the paper and professor of chemistry at Emory University.