Coat a blue LED with a thin layer of microscopic beads called quantum dots of a particular size and the resulting hybrid LED gives off white light, similar to that produced by an incandescent lamp.

Quantum dots that produce white light could be the light bulb’s successor But chemists at Vanderbilt University discovered a way to make quantum dots spontaneously produce broad-spectrum white light.

The main light source of the future will almost surely not be a bulb. It might be a table, a wall, or even a fork. An accidental discovery announced this week has taken LED lighting to a new level, ...