Saw this link on Reddit.
http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/chemistry/compound-transform-infrared-visible-light-03940.html

Get ready for crazy efficient MH bulbs! 

Yes and no - If you coat the glass with this stuff as a phosphor, it will add light but also block some of the arctube light, which is quite a lot in MH

If used on incandescents tho ^_^

Yes and no - If you coat the glass with this stuff as a phosphor, it will add light but also block some of the arctube light, which is quite a lot in MH

If used on incandescents tho ^_^

Then it would save them from extinction.

Wow. This could make incandescents a viable source again! I wonder if it will be used on LEDs or coated MH lamps?

On LEDs definitely no, as they dont make allmost any IR

On coated MH - The MH are coated with Alumina or something like that, to diffuse the light but block as little as possible. I dont know how much would the new material block the arctube light - It is possible that the blocked light will be more than it contributes - in which case its not worth it. Maybe it can be used for some specially high CRI lamps, simply to fill in the spectrum, but we allready have CMH with excellent CRI

Thing is, you cannot convert a lower energy (IR) Photon to a higher energy (visible light) Photon. In order to work, this material must be optimized to getting double hit. I.e. it converts 2 IR Photons to 1 visible Photon. How efficient this process is - thats up to guessing, and might improve if it is developed further

A fascinating idea but reading the synopsis of the Science article "A highly efficient directional molecular white-light emitter driven by a continuous-wave laser diode", it might remain a limited application for microscopy. Yet in the end it says: This development could open up new routes for advanced directed illumination technologies, especially since the materials used..are cheap, readily available, and easily scalable. Hope I'm around in 30 years.

Materials may be cheap, but most likely it works only with very narrow band radiation as the primary source (to match the pumping energy transitions.
So unless some really high efficient narrow band IR primary source would be available for it (todays blue LED's are already above 50%, the conversion losses when speaking about white output can not be much different), I don't think it will bring any much improvements for general lighting use.

Why so ? If the material have a distribution of traps throughout the energy gap from (Ec+Ev)/2 to Ec, than any "1st" Photon have some chance to hit a trap ready to accept it. Then if above Ec there are continuous allowed states, the 2nd Photon does not have to be precise but anything > Ec-Etrap