ILLUMINATION WITH SOLID STATE LIGHTING TECHNOLOGY

ABSTRACT


One century later, after Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb solid state

lighting is coming of age. Solid state electronics has been replacing their vacuum tube

predecessors for almost five decades. However solid state lighting had to wait for the

invention of the blue solid state light emitters, namely gallium nitride light emitting

diodes (LED).

High power lighting emitting diodes have begun to differentiate

themselves from their more common cousins, the indicator LED’s. Today, these

LED’s are designed to generate 10-100 lm per LED with efficiencies exceeding that of

incandescent and halogen bulbs, with great reduction in power consumption. After a

brief summary of the motivation for the development of high power LED’s, here it

describes the current state of high power LED technology [with reference to WHITE

LED] and challenges that lay ahead for the development of a true “solid state lamp”,

and demonstrates the record performance, reliability and other advantages of high

power colored and white LED’s and also a look at the future of the technology.