how much brighter can a led get?

[FlashKat]

EVERYONE.... By now you should REALIZE Stereodude knows all, and he will always be correct!!! Stereodude is the smartest dude in the universe.

 

[Bullzeyebill]

EVERYONE.... By now you should REALIZE Stereodude knows all, and he will always be correct!!! Stereodude is the smartest dude in the universe.

That is stirring the pot, or baiting. Folks, attack the post, not the poster. Let's all keep it civil here. If a poster is being overbearing and offensive, report the post, and a mod or administrator will check it out.

Bill

 

[LedTed]

Pumped laser diodes are technically Light Emitting Diodes LEDs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode-pumped_solid-state_laser
So theoretically, the increase in brightness could jump exponentially for many if not all colors; including white.

As already pointed out in this thread, as nano-technology advances, so will LED technology.
carbon nano-tubes
nano-lenses
micro-thin scintillators

Newly evolving technologies can help make LED lighting usable in hand-held platforms and on "small" power cells.
diamond substraits

 

[PeterRamish]

Pumped laser diodes are technically Light Emitting Diodes LEDs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode-pumped_solid-state_laser
So theoretically, the increase in brightness could jump exponentially for many if not all colors; including white.

As already pointed out in this thread, as nano-technology advances, so will LED technology.
carbon nano-tubes
nano-lenses
micro-thin scintillators

Newly evolving technologies can help make LED lighting usable in hand-held platforms and on "small" power cells.
diamond substraits

Well, right. Again I will try to draw the conversation back to my understanding of the OPs original question "how much brighter can a led get" which i admit, I personally understand to mean that he really meant "how much more (radiant energy) can an led emit"

Unfortunately my understanding of the question means that I answer it in terms of pure energy (watts in this case). If you want it answered in terms of a "flavor of energy" like blue energy or red energy or white energy, then you must really start to fudge the math and create constants for the spectral response curves of the human to lumens, so you can work the flavored lumens back over time to get a measurement of "flavored energy".. Here is such math,

780nm
Φv =Km ∫Φe(λ)⋅V(λ)dλ
380nm​

But the take away from this that yes, your statement is true ".. the increase in brightness could jump..(irrespective of the color of that emitted light)" I will take the liberty to re-phrase it in terms of my understanding and my bias as follows: "the increase in brightness (energy to the human eye over time) could jump (forever without limit, as limited only by your "newly evolving technologies")

I want to go back to a comment from the OPs statement about a comparison to advancements in CPU. It is now understood that "quantum computers" are possible as a reality. There have been lab demonstrations that show that it 'can be done' . At that point it will be possible to add, subtract, and perform boolean functions at the speed of light. At that point theoretical limits and on-earth reality merge into one. So be careful sneezing at my light engine example theory that shows that, you can pour into it without limit some particular form of energy and get out the other end "radiant watts=lumens over time(which is energy by definition).

 

[Stereodude]

think the thread title should be how much more efficient can LED's get. The answer to that is a LOT and its starting to happen now. I cannot even imagine what Cree will be making in 10 years.

As has been hashed out repeatedly in the thread already, the answer is not "a LOT". LEDs are already more than halfway to the maximum luminous efficiency possible.

Please re-read my answer carefully.. You will see that I covered the issue that he asked 2 questions, not one, and I selected and responded to the question posed in the title. I will stand by my answer. He asked "how much brighter can an LED get".. the answer is that there is no limit.

...

Please carefully re-read the OPs question that he phrased in the title, and then hold your new found understanding of his query in your head as you carefully re-read my answer. You will see all is good.

I read your post carefully the first time. Apparently I read it too carefully and responded to the words you used rather than what you think you wrote. You said:

then the answer to your questions is "that there is no limit"

That's the answer to one of his two questions. You state that's the answer to both of his questions. If you would re-read your post carefully will see that you did use the plural of the word question in your post, which apparently started the whole point of contention / confusion.

EVERYONE.... By now you should REALIZE Stereodude knows all, and he will always be correct!!! Stereodude is the smartest dude in the universe.

I'm glad you've gotten the message. I'm glad you're helping to spread the word! Don't stop now. :thumbsup:

Pumped laser diodes are technically Light Emitting Diodes LEDs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode-pumped_solid-state_laser
So theoretically, the increase in brightness could jump exponentially for many if not all colors; including white.

As already pointed out in this thread, as nano-technology advances, so will LED technology.
carbon nano-tubes
nano-lenses
micro-thin scintillators

Newly evolving technologies can help make LED lighting usable in hand-held platforms and on "small" power cells.
diamond substraits

And not a one of those things is going to help any LED manufacturer break the laws of physics. It's not possible to get more energy out of LED in light than was pumped into it as electrical energy. The answer to maximum luminous efficiency for a LED has been posted several times in the thread already.

 

[PeterRamish]

..
That's the answer to one of his two questions. ..you did use the plural of the word question in your post, which apparently started the whole point of contention / confusion.

Yes, you are correct,.. I finger flubbed the "s" there and the plural is a source of confusion. (good eyes, +1 point for you !..) That's what's wrong with plain text language in discussion of these matters. I tested the waters in my last post and included a little math. When I first saw this thread I almost launched into a math proof, but thought that not appropriate in CPF context..

Anyway I stand corrected on you spotting my "s' which did twist my answer as it looked like I was responding ' no limits' to both questions. So with that I think I'll stand clear and let you all continue on with your discussion. I am probably not the best person to get involved in forum posting. I read CPF with great interest, but think, in the future, I will just read, not talk ..

 

[FlashKat]

Yes, you are correct,.. I finger flubbed the "s" there and the plural is a source of confusion. (good eyes, +1 point for you !..) That's what's wrong with plain text language in discussion of these matters. I tested the waters in my last post and included a little math. When I first saw this thread I almost launched into a math proof, but thought that not appropriate in CPF context..

Anyway I stand corrected on you spotting my "s' which did twist my answer as it looked like I was responding ' no limits' to both questions. So with that I think I'll stand clear and let you all continue on with your discussion. I am probably not the best person to get involved in forum posting. I read CPF with great interest, but think, in the future, I will just read, not talk ..

I appreciate everyone's input, and we all make mistakes where we just keep moving forward sharing our knowledge to learn together. Keep on talking PeterRamish :twothumbs

 

[Lumencrazy]

Upon rereading all this, I see that the OP asked two different questions, so I will address one of them (the other is a simple energy units conversion question that is really not that interesting anyway..

If I understand your question to be *exactly* in your title " how much brighter can a led get?

then the answer to your questions is "that there is no limit"

The answers to your question that site 'luminous efficacy" as a limiting factor are not really correct. We have to be very careful asking and answering questions like this in plain language. Physicists and engineers use mathematic notation to express these relationships. Plain language is not precise enough and has a bunch of fuzzy trap doors. Efficiency is involved, of course, but not exactly the way you think when discussing Lumens which are a measurement of 'the perceived' amount of 'luminous flux'. If you could convert all energy into your 'light engine' to visible light then the 'luminous efficiency' will go to 100% and you are well on your way to the worlds infinitely brightest LED.

So in plain English I will defend my answer. Imagine a steam engine, it converts heat energy to rotational power at the end of its output shaft. We all easily understand that if our steam engine has no internal losses then your could, in theory, pour an infinite amount of heat into it and get an infinite amount of rotational power out the shaft at the other end. The same is true for a 'light conversion engine'. If I can design such an engine with a 100% conversion with no loss then there is an output directly relational to the input energy without limit.

A confusion arises with the LED engine, is that there are TWO conversion losses involved. One is the traditional losses that everyone is familiar with, that is conversion into heat energy, the other is the loss into other wavelengths that do not contribute to, what is known as the 'luminous flux' . If you can design a LED with no loss outside of luminous flux, and no conversion loss into heat then there is no restriction on 'watts in = luminous flux out' . Just to be clear 'lumens' will not convert directly to a measurement of power, just as 'rpm' is not a correct expression of the power output of the example steam engine. 'Luminous flux', however is a measure of converted total power of electromagnetic radiation which is adjusted to the wavelengths that your eye perceives.

Really? for the steam engine example, what about the Carnot cycle and the second law of thermodynamics?

 

[lampeDépêche]

The lumens-per-watt question has a clear and definite answer, which has already been given on this thread several times.

(If you want to think about why there *has* to be such an upper limit, then consider what would follow from the assumption that there is no limit to the lumens per watt. If that were right, then we could shine the light on solar panels and harvest more watts out than we put in. Whenever you see a perpetual-motion machine on the horizon, you know it's a proof that one of your assumptions is wrong.)

The answer to the question in the title--"how much brighter can a led get?"--may not have any clear and definite answer, because it's not clear when something is "a" LED, i.e one LED, versus when it is 4 LEDs or 4 million LEDs.

Is a quad-die emitter one LED, or 4 LEDs? We talk about the HXP-50 as "an LED," but I think one could argue that each die is a separate circuit-element, separately addressable, and thus a separate diode.

So LEDs will get brighter as they get bigger. Once we can make an emitter that is one meter on each edge, it will be very bright.

It will be hard to find a pocket-clip for the light, though.

S

 

[sidecross]

I appreciate everyone's input, and we all make mistakes where we just keep moving forward sharing our knowledge to learn together. Keep on talking PeterRamish :twothumbs

+1

Albert Einstein and John Bell (Bell's Theorem) did not, at first, get many 'slaps on the back' or appreciation.