God created light. Edison invented the lightbulb. And Mark Winsor devised the flat fluorescent lamp. The Seattle-based artist-turned-inventor began his research in an attempt to make glowing signs. He ended up with a light source brighter and more efficient than the old-but-still-standard cathode-ray tube.
The invention quickly found a niche in aerospace, backlighting the LCD cockpit displays of many a military jet fighter. And now the technology is filtering down - Winsor just signed deals with the largest US avionics company and with a sizable computer manufacturer, who will put the fluorescent lamp behind thousands of desktop monitors by early 2000.
"We want to take the technology back into the architectural, artistic, and signage markets," says Winsor, who has worked with pop art icons Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg. With 10 patents already secured and another six pending, Mark Winsor's future looks, well, electroluminescent.
ELECTRIC WORD
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