Nano-Lit: Pioneering ‘Sunlight on Demand’
September 15, 2025
6 min read
Industrial Designer Sarah Morgan on using quantum dots to develop dynamic Circadian Rhythm Lighting.
Written by Laura Beeston
Illustrations by Lívia Prata
Working in the shadows of a modern world that has disconnected humans from natural light, Nano-Lit leverages the power of solar cycles, technology, and the latest neuroscience to improve health outcomes, enhance sleep, and reimagine the built environment.
While a host of products, podcasts, diets, experts, and advice on getting quality sleep proliferates in the zeitgeist, the sun is something that people often take for granted — despite the fact that natural light is a cornerstone for good health.
Light is an essential part of the Circadian Rhythm, which regulates the sleep-wake cycle. Scientists have shown that light is a key signal for the body and influences human behaviors in a variety of ways, affecting physical, mental, cognitive, and physiological well being.
And yet, the CEO of Nano-Lit Technologies often repeats dark facts about contemporary life: that humans spend 90% of our time indoors, under artificial light. And 33% of employees don’t get enough natural light at work.
We’re now at a place technologically where we can absolutely be delivering very sophisticated lighting and schedules that support circadian health,” says Morgan.
What’s holding us back, she believes, are old ways of doing business, funding cycles falling far behind the speed of innovation, product availability, and so-called value engineering: “It’s an upstream problem [that results in] beautiful spaces badly lit.”
Luckily, Morgan and her company are illuminating a path forward.
The dawn of a circadian lighting system
Morgan’s first foray into lighting was an award-winning high school project, followed by exploratory stints in the music production and fashion industries before returning to a masters in industrial design from Pratt Institute in New York. It was there she was introduced to quantum dots by Dr. Ryan Schreiner, a biologist using them for breast cancer research.
“The personal part of this story is that I was doing Transcendental Meditation training through the David Lynch Foundation at the time I started working on quantum dots,” she recalls. “I can guarantee I would have never understood quantum dots had I not started meditation.”
After returning to Scotland, Dutch multinational AkzoNobel — experts in paint and performance coatings — hired Morgan to work on ‘programmable paint’ using quantum dots, with the understanding that it was a 15-year roadmap. This in turn attracted the interest of Mercedes, who hired Nano-Lit to work on automotive glass applications.
Fashion “taught me that every season you earn the right to do your next collection,” Morgan says, as well as the importance of being iterative, proving a use case, and developing new work alongside longer timelines.
So she asked herself: What are the ways to use the quantum dot technology in its current capabilities? “That, for me, was lighting. It was a way to develop the hardware that was needed to wrap around the chemistry.”
Totally tunable Lighting as a Service (LaaS)
Morgan founded Nano-Lit Technologies in 2013 and incorporated it in the U.K., the Netherlands, and Canada, eventually finding the funding, partners, and pathway to develop tunable, full-spectrum Circadian Rhythm Lighting systems.
Today, Nano-Lit offers the Smart Diffuser, which features controlled light temperature, intensity, and spectral composition and follows dynamic, 24-hour proprietary schedules also known as ‘light recipes.’
Based on the latest research, developed in consultation with circadian lighting experts, and the WELL Standard, the recipes optimize lighting for places like office spaces, health care facilities, and senior care homes, in order to support circadian rhythms, and improve health, alertness and performance.
Not only is sunlight dynamic and changing, but our understanding of what it does is dynamic and changing, so we’ve focused our technology to be able to easily update with the research.”
Morgan champions quantum dots since they provide lighting that’s “clean,” replicates the light conditions humans evolved under, and nanocrystals can be controlled with greater accuracy to simulate the sun and mimic its changing nature throughout the day.
“People don’t realize how much [light] affects us,” she emphasizes. “A big part of our ‘Sunlight on Demand’ software is to make it easier to sell this type of technology [and] for the customer to understand it.”
And the potential to develop new light recipes is huge.
Morgan imagines a not-so-distant future where a user concerned about getting sick can go into their Nano-Lit app, select a biodynamic light recipe for cold and flu season, for example, and then enjoy the benefits of getting longer, better sleep — proven to reduce the risk of contracting viruses and help regulate immune function.
Proving sunlight’s ROI
After selling half a million dollars’ worth of Smart Diffuser technology in the first three months of launching in 2019, and installing it in places like Vancouver City Hall and senior care facilities, Nano-Lit was meeting major companies interested in Circadian Rhythm Lighting . . . before all potential new business shut down with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Morgan quickly realized she would have to pivot. “What was lucky was that all these researchers also had their studies shut down,” she recalls, “so we [gathered] all these heads of labs from UCLA, NYU, Stanford, Cornell, Harvard, Yale, Oxford, University of Singapore, University of Pennsylvania, and were meeting every month to share research.”
What resulted is the Nano-Lit Circadian Rhythm Research Consortium, an active, collaborative partnership that shares knowledge on circadian lighting and banks evidence to help bridge academia and industry.
During the pandemic, Nano-Lit hired a chronobiologist to review the research and collate 200+ white papers proving the impact of biodynamic lighting as it relates to the mining industry, hospital recovery times, senior care, offices, education, and more.
Today, the company can replicate any of those lighting schedules and provide data to demonstrate its predictable outcomes, Morgan explains. “It was a hard time financially but, in terms of building credibility, it was really valuable.”
And since everybody was suddenly working from home, she decided Nano-Lit’s next move would be to develop a portable product; they debuted Artemis at New York Fashion Week in 2023.
Currently looking to raise $2 million in funding, Morgan’s goal is to bring Artemis’ production price down and get this lamp to the public — making it available through a national retailer.
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Sunlight Moonshots
Much like a ray of sunlight, Morgan’s ambition for Nano-Lit extends far beyond getting Artemis into the world: she believes proper light can help heal the workforce, could be used as a tool to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), soothe suicidal ideation, support sensitivities from autism spectrum, and even deal with migraines.
Demonstrating many benefits for a host of human health issues, Circadian Lighting systems could be applied in healthcare settings and for other shift workers, for their patients, for folks in correctional facilities, and even in space.
In fact, Nano-Lit has a dedicated space salesperson. “I’ve consulted with NASA, CSA, scoped a project for the European Space Agency, consulted Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin…” says Morgan. “[Circadian lighting is] going to space. It’s not if, but when.”
What excites Morgan most about taking her lighting systems to the stars is that space programs force companies to do their best research and development: “Weight is at a premium [in space]. So how could we make our product smaller and lightweight? They care about it more than anyone else.”
Coming back to Earth, though, Morgan understands that a deep, human need for circadian lighting is all around us:
“There’s a health crisis and the fundamentals of what facilitates life to thrive are missing . . . those basics: food, water, air, and light,” she says. “What I see with quantum dots . . . is the ability to provide light that is no longer impeding human health.”
Read: Sign up to receive the white paper that earned Nano-Lit recognition from the Illuminating Engineering Society, and learn more about the benefits of circadian lighting.
Watch: Morgan explains the importance of Light and Circadian Rhythms in this TEDx.
See: Sarah live at the upcoming IES Toronto event on September 17th, 2025
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