On September 20, KAIST announced that Professor Keonjae Lee’s research team from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering succeeded in developing a biocompatible, flexible Gallium Nitride Light Emitting Diode (GaN LED). The research team also discovered that the light from the LED responds differently to the antigen-antibody reaction, detecting the antibody of prostate cancer. The study was published in the September issue of Nano Energy, whose editor-in-chief Zhong Lin Wang is a world-renowned scholar in nanotechnology.

GaN is a mechanically stable semiconductor material known for its high efficiency. It has been proposed for applications in nano-scale electronics, optoelectronics and biochemical sensing. Until now, constructing flexible electronic systems with this semiconductor material has been difficult because of its brittleness.

Professor Lee’s team transferred thin GaN LED films cultivated on a stiff substrate onto a flexible plastic substrate and developed a biocompatible biosensor which can be applied to living organisms. Professor Lee said, “Flexible LED is an exciting new field. It could address important human health issues such as the prolongation of life.” The new invention’s potential in implantable biomedical applications seems limitless. It is expected that intensive light from a wide range of wavelengths including green, blue and ultraviolet generated from the flexible LED can be applied to the treatment of diseases by stimulating neurons.

Since 2009, related studies and findings have been applied for and obtained patents domestically and internationally. Last March, the study was selected as KAIST’s representative research topic. Currently, Professor Lee is conducting follow-up research with Geongyong Sung, co-researcher of the paper from Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), on a Label Free LED Biosensor that can be transplanted into living organisms.