Over the past few years, screen manufacturers have become obsessed with the potential of tiny crystals known as quantum dots. The idea is that a quantum dot television or cellphone may offer sharper and brighter images for less money. There was talk that Apple would release an iMac with a quantum dot screen last year. But then the company switched course, declaring that the existing process for making these little crystals was too toxic to the environment. Samsung offers its SUHD TV with environmentally friendlier quantum dot technology, but it’s not cheap.

In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last week, five chemical engineers at Lehigh University outline a simpler and more environmentally friendly way to create the dots: Feed some metal to a single enzyme extracted from bacteria. The colorful vials, pictured above, are filled with the little dots grown in a lab at Lehigh through this cost-effective method.

Under LED lights, the little crystals, which can generate both electricity and colored light, glow like plastic pegs on a Lite-Brite screen.

Bryan Berger, a co-author of the study, stumbled across this alternative for creating the little dots through an unintended sequence of events. It began when an alarmed hospital staff in Pennsylvania discovered a superbug growing on metal surfaces in 2011.