Assessing the safety of new germicidal far-UVC technologies.

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the crucial importance of enhanced indoor air quality control measures to mitigate the spread of respiratory pathogens. Far-UVC is a type of germicidal ultraviolet technology, with wavelengths between 200 and 235 nm, that has emerged as a highly promising approach for indoor air disinfection. Due to its enhanced safety compared to conventional 254 nm upper-room germicidal systems, far-UVC allows for whole-room direct exposure of occupied spaces, potentially offering greater efficacy, since the total room air is constantly treated. While current evidence supports using far-UVC systems within existing guidelines, understanding the upper safety limit is critical to maximizing its effectiveness, particularly for the acute phase of a pandemic or epidemic when greater protection may be needed. This review article summarizes the substantial present knowledge on far-UVC safety regarding skin and eye exposure and highlights research priorities to discern the maximum exposure levels that avoid adverse effects. We advocate for comprehensive safety studies that explore potential mechanisms of harm, generate action spectra for crucial biological effects and conduct high-dose, long-term exposure trials. Such rigorous scientific investigation will be key to determining safe and effective levels for far-UVC deployment in indoor environments, contributing significantly to future pandemic preparedness and response.

Skin optical properties from 200 to 300 nm support far UV-C skin-safety in vivo.

The growing threat of multi-drug resistant pathogens and airborne microbial diseases has highlighted the need to improve or develop novel disinfection methods for clinical environments. Conventional ultraviolet C (UV-C) lamps effectively inactivate microorganisms but are harmful to human skin and eyes upon exposure. The use of new 233 nm far UV-C LEDs as an antiseptic can overcome those limitations. In this research, the light penetration into the skin was elucidated for the UV-C region (<300 nm) by measuring the scattering and absorption of skin layers and inverse Monte Carlo simulation, and further confirmed by the first clinical pilot trial in which healthy volunteers were irradiated with a dose of 60 mJ/cm2 at 233 nm. The radiation is strongly absorbed in the stratum corneum, resulting in minimal skin damage without inducing inflammatory responses. The results suggest that 233 nm far UV-C light emitting diodes (LEDs) could effectively inactivate microorganisms, while being safe and soft for the skin.

Evaluation of DNA lesions and radicals generated by a 233 nm far-UVC LED in superficial ex vivo skin wounds.

The application of a far-ultraviolet C (UVC) light emitting diode (LED) of 233 nm showed significant bactericidal efficacy at an applied dose between 20 and 80 mJ cm-2 as reported recently. In addition, only minor epidermal DNA lesions were observed in ex vivo human skin and in vitro epidermal models <10% of the minimal erythema dose of UVB radiation. To broaden the potential range of applications of such systems, e.g. to include postoperative application on wounds for the purpose of decontamination, we assessed how a disruption of normal anatomic skin structure and function influences the skin damage induced by light from 233 nm far-UVC LEDs. Thus, we induced superficial skin wounds by mechanical detachment of the stratum corneum in ex vivo human skin. Barrier-disruption of the skin could be successfully determined by measuring an increase in the transepidermal water loss (TEWL) and the stratum corneum loss could be determined morphologically by 2-photon microscopy (2-PM). After far-UVC irradiation of the skin, we screened the tissue for the development of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) and 6-4 photoproducts (6-4PPs). The abundance of DNA lesions was elevated in wound skin in comparison to intact skin after irradiation with far-UVC. However, no increase in DNA lesions was detected when artificial wound exudate consisting of cell culture medium and serum was applied to the disrupted skin surface prior to irradiation. This effect agrees with the results of ray tracing simulations of the absorption of far-UVC light incident on a superficial skin wound. Interestingly, no significant deviations in radical formation between intact skin and superficially wounded skin were detected after far-UVC irradiation as analyzed by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. In conclusion, 233 nm LED light at a dose of 60 mJ/cm2 could be applied safely on superficial wounds for the purpose of skin antisepsis as long as the wounds are covered with wound fluid.

Increased Light Extraction of Thin-Film Flip-Chip UVB LEDs by Surface Texturing.

Ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (LEDs) suffer from a low wall-plug efficiency, which is to a large extent limited by the poor light extraction efficiency (LEE). A thin-film flip-chip (TFFC) design with a roughened N-polar AlGaN surface can substantially improve this. We here demonstrate an enabling technology to realize TFFC LEDs emitting in the UVB range (280-320 nm), which includes standard LED processing in combination with electrochemical etching to remove the substrate. The integration of the electrochemical etching is achieved by epitaxial sacrificial and etch block layers in combination with encapsulation of the LED. The LEE was enhanced by around 25% when the N-polar AlGaN side of the TFFC LEDs was chemically roughened, reaching an external quantum efficiency of 2.25%. By further optimizing the surface structure, our ray-tracing simulations predict a higher LEE from the TFFC LEDs than flip-chip LEDs and a resulting higher wall-plug efficiency.

Effect of Inhomogeneous Broadening in Ultraviolet III-Nitride Light-Emitting Diodes.

In the past years, light-emitting diodes (LED) made of GaN and its related ternary compounds with indium and aluminium have become an enabling technology in all areas of lighting. Visible LEDs have yet matured, but research on deep ultraviolet (UV) LEDs is still in progress. The polarisation in the anisotropic wurtzite lattice and the low free hole density in p-doped III-nitride compounds with high aluminium content make the design for high efficiency a critical step. The growth kinetics of the rather thin active quantum wells in III-nitride LEDs makes them prone to inhomogeneous broadening (IHB). Physical modelling of the active region of III-nitride LEDs supports the optimisation by revealing the opaque active region physics. In this work, we analyse the impact of the IHB on the luminescence and carrier transport III-nitride LEDs with multi-quantum well (MQW) active regions by numerical simulations comparing them to experimental results. The IHB is modelled with a statistical model that enables efficient and deterministic simulations. We analyse how the lumped electronic characteristics including the quantum efficiency and the diode ideality factor are related to the IHB and discuss how they can be used in the optimisation process.

Skin tolerant inactivation of multiresistant pathogens using far-UVC LEDs.

Multiresistant pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) cause serious postoperative infections. A skin tolerant far-UVC (< 240 nm) irradiation system for their inactivation is presented here. It uses UVC LEDs in combination with a spectral filter and provides a peak wavelength of 233 nm, with a full width at half maximum of 12 nm, and an irradiance of 44 µW/cm2. MRSA bacteria in different concentrations on blood agar plates were inactivated with irradiation doses in the range of 15-40 mJ/cm2. Porcine skin irradiated with a dose of 40 mJ/cm2 at 233 nm showed only 3.7% CPD and 2.3% 6-4PP DNA damage. Corresponding irradiation at 254 nm caused 15-30 times higher damage. Thus, the skin damage caused by the disinfectant doses is so small that it can be expected to be compensated by the skin's natural repair mechanisms. LED-based far-UVC lamps could therefore soon be used in everyday clinical practice to eradicate multiresistant pathogens directly on humans.