Luminescent transparent wood for diffusive white light generation

Diffused white light is generated from a single-layer transparent wood (TW) composite incorporating a mixture of green and red CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) under blue light-emitting diode (LED) excitation. Unlike conventional multilayer or single-emitter systems, a simple codispersion strategy is used in which multiple QDs are incorporated within a single TW layer. Notably, no blue-emitting QDs are required. The QD-TW composites show excellent mechanical properties. The 0.6 mm thick composite shows high optical transmittance, strong haze, and a quantum yield of 42%. Under UV-blue excitation, the composite produces homogeneous white light through the combined contributions of QD emission and TW light scattering. TW can serve as a sustainable, mechanically robust platform for multicolor emitters and provide glare-free, uniform illumination