Brighter Light Sources from Black Metal: Significant Increase in Emission Efficiency of Incandescent Light Sources

By applying the femtosecond laser blackening technique directly to a tungsten incandescent lamp filament, we dramatically brighten the tungsten lamp and enhance its emission efficiency to approach 100%. A comparison study of emission and absorption for the structured metal surfaces shows that Kirchhoff's law is applicable for the black metal. Furthermore, we demonstrate that we can even obtain partially polarized light as well as control the spectral range of the optimal light emission from the laser-blackened tungsten lamp.