# What technology will replace LED's as most efficient light source



## ebow86

Do we have any ideas on what hypothetically could replace the LED in the future? I know LED technology isn't that old, and it is getting better and better everyday but is there any technology on the horizon that could be superior to LED's in terms of efficiency and output? Any theory's on what lies down the road 25 or 50 years from now? Do you think that LED is here to stay for a long time?


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## parnass

This video clip, entitled _Flashlight Experiment LEP vs LED_, implies that plasma technology could replace LEDs.


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## 2filthy3

Makers of plasma light bulbs are claiming 140+lm/W

(oops, you snooze you lose)


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## Lighteous

Wow! Take me to the nearest Flashaholism Rehab Center...


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## Napalm

2filthy3 said:


> Makers of plasma light bulbs are claiming 140+lm/W
> 
> (oops, you snooze you lose)


 
White leds go up to 150 and low pressure sodium lamps can go up to 200. So what's so cool about plasma.

Nap.


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## silentlurker

Exciting! How durable are plasma bulbs? What additional radiation to they give off?


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## ebow86

I don't think plamsa will be replacing LED's anytime soon, LED technology has come too far already. When I started the post, I was thinking someone would know about some radical theoretical technology that could come in the future. Plasma is already an existing technology.


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## Launch Mini

I don't think they are comparing apples to apples there. THe "high power LED" could be anything, they didnt even show the light, then the Plasma light is some big high voltage light. I am sure a few CPF's here have LED's that will perform equally to their light.


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## John_Galt

parnass said:


> This video clip, entitled _Flashlight Experiment LEP vs LED_, implies that plasma technology could replace LEDs.



So they had some aspheric equipped light, which, with the efficiency of aspherics, and all the loss of output in the head, is likely less than 100 lumens OTF, all of which is in a small, square beam, and tried to compare that to a searchlight sized 10-12" reflectored light that probably put out thousands of lumens? That's an apples to Zebras comparison. 

Let's see them try that with a similar high output, multi-LED, multi-reflectored light powered by the same powersource, in a similar format...


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## Norm

Moved to General Light Discussion.
Norm


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## Lynx_Arc

Napalm said:


> White leds go up to 150 and low pressure sodium lamps can go up to 200. So what's so cool about plasma.
> 
> Nap.


 
You can get 168 lumens/watt LEDs now I believe. Plasma bulbs are essentially still in the labs as far as I can tell nobody sells them and at 140 lumens/watt they are blown away by Cree's 231 lumens/watt LED that is also still in the lab. 
I see LEDs taking over more and more of the lighting chores and in the years to come all but the high output fixtures will be LEDs as LEDs price per lumen is still way too high to justify investment for the efficiency boost.


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## jtr1962

When you look at the current trends in LED development, it's likely we'll be at 80% to 90% conversion efficiency by the end of the decade. Besides that, LEDs can last hundreds of thousands of hours. When you're this close to theoretical maximums, I'm not really seeing how any other technology can replace LEDs. Even cost is rapidly coming down. I personally think LEDs and OLEDs will be the pinnacle of artificial lighting probably forever. There just isn't a whole lot of room for any new technology to improve upon.


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## SemiMan

http://luxim.com/ is commercially available plasma lighting.

Will plasma beat LED ... I think unlikely only because the process is simple and while simple is good, it has limitations. LED has so many ways that will be found over time to tweak the output that we are going to get very close to theoretical maximums. 

Semiman


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## Colorblinded

Lynx_Arc said:


> You can get 168 lumens/watt LEDs now I believe. Plasma bulbs are essentially still in the labs as far as I can tell nobody sells them and at 140 lumens/watt they are blown away by Cree's 231 lumens/watt LED that is also still in the lab.
> I see LEDs taking over more and more of the lighting chores and in the years to come all but the high output fixtures will be LEDs as LEDs price per lumen is still way too high to justify investment for the efficiency boost.


 If Luxim's claims are to be believed, then yes Cree may have a higher lumen/watt offering but Luxim beats them by a good margin in lumens/watt at the CCT and CRI their LEPs run at.


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## Lynx_Arc

Colorblinded said:


> If Luxim's claims are to be believed, then yes Cree may have a higher lumen/watt offering but Luxim beats them by a good margin in lumens/watt at the CCT and CRI their LEPs run at.



If you can show me a time to market of their products I will consider them a valid competitor. We know Cree can take stuff from their lab and get it on the market within a few years but I really know very little about Luxims products. I seem to remember an RF bulb design a long time ago back when CFLs were $15 each that made promises then...


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## Colorblinded

Lynx_Arc said:


> If you can show me a time to market of their products I will consider them a valid competitor. We know Cree can take stuff from their lab and get it on the market within a few years but I really know very little about Luxims products. I seem to remember an RF bulb design a long time ago back when CFLs were $15 each that made promises then...


 As I said, if their site is to be believed then they may already have commercially available products with the qualities I mentioned.


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## Lynx_Arc

Colorblinded said:


> As I said, if their site is to be believed then they may already have commercially available products with the qualities I mentioned.


 
They may only be able to compete in a niche market with their product on the commercial level. If I read correctly they are using RF to excite a gas to make light which is nothing new as it has been around since fluorecent tubes and radio transmitters have been around.


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## SemiMan

Luxim has real products and they are shipping in volumes ... 10's of thousands to date. That said, I do not believe they have anything actually shipping at 100 lumen/watt or greater. All the specs I can find are 80ish at best with AC taken into account. They are real and they are competition but I believe at least for now, they will compete for the big stuff -- MH replacements, etc. -- think 400/1000 watt stuff.


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## Lynx_Arc

SemiMan said:


> Luxim has real products and they are shipping in volumes ... 10's of thousands to date. That said, I do not believe they have anything actually shipping at 100 lumen/watt or greater. All the specs I can find are 80ish at best with AC taken into account. They are real and they are competition but I believe at least for now, they will compete for the big stuff -- MH replacements, etc. -- think 400/1000 watt stuff.


 
I don't see LEDs replacing high output lights in the near future, perhaps later when they are able to get the cost per lumen down and the output way up per emitter we will see LEDs starting to compete with metal halide lamps in output. In other words Luxim is marketing in the range that LEDs haven't yet penetrated at efficiencies that basically make it unable to penetrate into the LED market. I see LEDs efficiency and output slowly pushing into the higher output market and perhaps one day replacing metal halide in specifically designed fixtures for them.


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## oldwesty4ever

Do you think incandescent, fluorescent and HID lamps are just a temporary transitional technology to move away from candles, oil and gas lights until LEDs become the true, ultimate successor to candles and the other lighting technologies?


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## Lynx_Arc

oldwesty4ever said:


> Do you think incandescent, fluorescent and HID lamps are just a temporary transitional technology to move away from candles, oil and gas lights until LEDs become the true, ultimate successor to candles and the other lighting technologies?


 
Incandescent lighting has been around well over 100 years, fluorescent lighting easily 50+ years and candles are still used also so I wouldn't consider them temporary or transitional at all as there is way too many fixtures in buildings and cars out there using them to go away anytime soon. I see LEDs over the next two decades to start becoming the go to technology in most applications that can take advantage of them as energy prices and energy production concerns arise more. I do not see any other technology improving at the rate nor matching the proven track record LEDs have at this time. I wish there was some other technology in a lab touting 200+ lumens/watt figures in the next few years even being produced so by that I don't see anything else usurping LEDs future dominance of the market. I don't however see LEDs taking over the market anytime soon as the cost/lumen is still too high such that you cannot recoup your investment in 5 years on them over other efficient light techologies that have a dramatically cheaper cost/lumen ratio.


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## beerwax

...............


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## EZO

Lynx_Arc said:


> I don't however see LEDs taking over the market anytime soon as the cost/lumen is still too high such that you cannot recoup your investment in 5 years on them over other efficient light techologies that have a dramatically cheaper cost/lumen ratio.



True, but this may become an invalid argument in a few short years. Well known venture capital firm Vantage Point Capital Partners claims that LED prices will fall by 90% by 2015.

Vantage Point has backed four LED companies Huga Optotech of Taiwan, Glo of Sweden, and the US companies Switch Bulb Co and Bridgelux. 

BTW, considering their track record it is interesting to see Switch Lighting on their list (Liquid filled LED Light Bulb) a technology dismissed as an "interim gimmick" and a "solution in search of a problem" by a CPF member who likes to make such pronouncements. Vantage Point Capital is also a backer of Tesla Motors and helped bring them public.


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## jtr1962

EZO said:


> BTW, considering their track record it is interesting to see Switch Lighting on their list (Liquid filled LED Light Bulb) a technology dismissed as an "interim gimmick" and a "solution in search of a problem" by a CPF member who likes to make such pronouncements. Vantage Point Capital is also a backer of Tesla Motors and helped bring them public.


And if you recall here's the reason I gave for that assessment:

_"With LEDs becoming ever more efficient, this seems like an interim gimmick to deal with a heat issue which won't even exist in 2 or 3 years."_

I don't deny that if LED efficiency was stagnant, then the liquid-filled light bulb might be a long-term, elegant solution. In fact, I plan to eventually buy one or two of them in the clear version just because I think it looks cool (but I'm waiting for 3500K or 4000K because I just can't stand 2700K). Anyway, the fact is it looks like LEDs will hit 80% to 90% conversion efficiency by the end of the decade. This means perhaps 1 watt of waste heat to deal with in a 100-watt incandescent equivalent. You don't even need anything beyond a small heat spreader to deal with that amount of heat. Besides, the long-term trend is towards purpose-built LED fixtures, or even OLED luminescent ceiling panels. As LEDs take over the market, brand-new fixtures based on screw-base lamps will likely disappear altogether from the market. Eventually, as existing screw-base fixtures wear out or break, they will be replaced with purpose-built LED fixtures with better thermal properties than a screw-base bulb. In short, not only do I not see the liquid-filled bulb as anything more than an interim solution, but also screw-base LED retrofits in general I see only as sort of a middle-term type of thing. In time they just won't be needed in large numbers (or at all) because the fixtures they're used in will largely be replaced. This already happened in the commercial sector starting after WWII. Fluorescents and other discharge lamps gradually replaced incandescents until the point that they were pretty much the only thing in use.

As for Tesla Motors, I recall being one of relatively few here saying that electric cars will be big, to the point that they'll likely obsolete gas cars within a decade or so, when Tesla Motors first started. Now that EV technology is proving itself, that looks likely to happen. Difficult to put a date on these things, but I'll give a 2020 to 2025 time frame for when the last ICE vehicle will see production. Anyway, it's not like I'm not forward thinking about new idea, it's just that with my engineering background I know what's likely to be viable and what isn't. Generally complex, expensive solutions to existing problems don't stay in the marketplace long unless the simple approach has serious drawbacks. That was the case, for example, with electric cars for a long time. They lacked the range, and had other issues, until perhaps 15 years ago. This is why the horribly complex, breakdown-prone ICE, mated to an equally complex multigear transmission, dominated the market. The much simpler battery plus electric motor just couldn't deliver until recently. For much the same reason, I'm not seeing why you would need a liquid-filled bulb once the heat issue with LEDs is solved (and it largely is because we know what to tweak in order to reach extremely high efficiencies).


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## EZO

jtr1962, I don't necessarily disagree with you here. I just think it interesting that a venture cap firm with the level of experience and expertise of Vantage Point would back this firm. Perhaps as far as the marketplace is concerned "interim" could be a long time. Just because a technical milestone will be achieved within a certain time frame doesn't mean it will make it to the market right away. In the meantime we have Switch Lighting and others. Personally, I enjoy watching the different approaches being taken whether they will survive or not. In fact, here is another one, (watch the video) a nanotech nanofiber/blue LED hybrid that may provide for very high CRI numbers and some interesting new luminaire design possibilities. Again, there are other considerations in the marketplace beyond pure engineering, but indeed, the engineering part is cool.

Did you happen to read the article I referenced in another thread titled "Solid-state lighting: ‘The case’ 10 years after and future prospects"? It seems like something that would be right up your alley. 

Respectfully, jtr1962, my post was primarily about the dramatically falling prices of LEDs which essentially supports many of your comments on these boards. I only mentioned Switch Lighting as a "BTW" remark with no intention of potentially derailing the thread into a long winded discourse on electric vehicles.


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## jtr1962

Thanks for the links. You are correct that what I call "interim" could be considered a long time in today's marketplace. Remember that many CEOs nowadays don't look much past the next quarter. From that perspective, the liquid-filled light bulb, which I say should be viable for at least 3 to 5 years, does indeed look like a good long-term investment. I'll admit sometimes my comments tend to be biased because my thinking tends to mirror the East more than the West. In Eastern nations things are often planned in terms of many years, decades, or even centuries (i.e. the Great Wall).


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## oldwesty4ever

I have read that the screw in socket actually violates the most basic electrical safety standards as they pose a major shock hazard. Remember it was designed in 1881, well before electrical safety standards went in effect. However, there are 4.5 billion screw in sockets in the USA, I doubt they will disappear that fast. Maybe in new construction intergrated fixture will be required to meet environmental regulations as they already require GU24 sockets in current LEED certified buildings.


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## jtr1962

EZO,

Commenting on that solid-state lighting paper you linked to, I found it interesting that the "pessimistic" view is that LED efficiency will plateau at around 200 lm/W, while the other, more optimistic author, said he felt 250 to 300 lm/W was more likely (I tend to agree). Even at 200 lm/W, plus decreased cost per lumen, LEDs should pretty much dominate the market except for niche applications. I thought the vacuum tube analogy particularly apt. Vacuum tubes haven't entirely disappeared, but are relegated to niche applications like microwave ovens which so far haven't proven amenable to a solid state solution. I suspect some niche lighting applications, especially those with high temperatures, will still use traditional solutions.

oldwesty4ever,

I agree 100% about the shock hazard. That might be the one thing which effectively regulates sockets out of existence, particularly in new construction. As for the installed base, generally people seem to replace their lamps/fixtures on a 15-25 year cycle. If socketed fixtures are no longer sold by, say, 2015, then they'll just about be gone by 2040 or so, with many gone by 2030.


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## beerwax

...........


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## EZO

oldwesty4ever said:


> I have read that the screw in socket actually violates the most basic electrical safety standards as they pose a major shock hazard. Remember it was designed in 1881, well before electrical safety standards went in effect. However, there are 4.5 billion screw in sockets in the USA, I doubt they will disappear that fast. Maybe in new construction intergrated fixture will be required to meet environmental regulations as they already require GU24 sockets in current LEED certified buildings.



Indeed, it will take a long time before we see the end of E27 screw in lightbulb sockets. It will take someone to come up with an innovative new design or paradigm. Helieon Corp is an early entry with an attempt to offer a line of LED products that are not E27s but "that are as easy as changing a light bulb".


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## jtr1962

beerwax said:


> isnt the lumens per watt of led pretty much good enough now. and that the issues are unit cost , heat , and aesthetics.
> heat manifests itself as unit cost and so for leds to be successful the heat has to go. i guess getting largescale financial backing does suggest that it is considered winnable.


Efficiency and heat are intertwined. This is why efficiency really needs to be bought up to at least 150 lm/W in order to get the waste heat from a 150 watt incandescent replacement manageable.



> today i am thinking the aesthetics are the achillies heel. an intense point source lends itself to torches, not general lighting. so there will always be unit cost and efficiency loss associated with softening that intensity.
> this is where oleds or some of the other technology has a chance.


Remote phosphor is the answer here. You put the blue LEDs inside the globe, coat the globe with phosphor, and you have diffused light without a heavy efficiency penalty.



> there are political forces at play too. it is not totally wacko to believe that , given their negligable unit cost , incans would have dominated forever. but politics has been applied. if led unit costs can match or get close to cfl then politics can play the mercury card and cfl is gone.
> 
> for general lighting, running costs are not everything. anything that has cfl or better efficiency is probably good enough . certainly once you are little bit better than cfl natural limits mean you cant suddenly make something that uses less than half the power.


The reason why LEDs are being pushed, besides the mercury issue of CFLs, is because we're nearing capacity of our grid/generating capacity. It's far easier to replace inefficient lighting than to beef up the grid, or even worse, build new power plants. I'm not really sure incans would have dominated forever even in the absense of this factor. The unit cost is low, but try brightly lighting, say, a kitchen with incans. You're talking 500 to 1000 watts, compared to something like 4 32 watt linear tubes. That translates into an enormous expense in electricity, plus added air conditioning bills. Besides that, let's say you have 10 bulbs with an average life of 1000 hours. On average then you'll have one lamp burning out every 100 hours. If you run the lights in the kitchen 6 hours a day, you're replacing one lamp about every 2 weeks. This is a royal PITA. On the flip side, I put new tubes in the 4x32W fixture in the kitchen in 2001. I finally changed them out last year. 3 of the 4 were still lighting, so I kept them for utility duty since I wanted to start off with all new fresh tubes. I'm home all the time. The kitchen light is on at least 10 hours most days. I hate to think how many incandescents I would have went through in that time, not to mention the cost of the electricity. Same thing with my workshop. Another reason I went to linear tubes 25 years ago over incandescents was to have a more natural, closer to sunlight, color temperature. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. No, as flourescent and later LED technology improved, it was inevitable it would eventually go from commercial to home use. Remember that industry largely abandoned incandescents after WWII, long before any energy or grid crisis. There were many compelling reasons, most of which are somewhat applicable to residential lighting as well.



> edit : have i missed something with electric cars . is there a way to charge them in under 5 minutes ?


In theory some new battery technology can charge in 5 minutes. In practice as range increases the need for fast charging becomes less and less. If your vehicle has a range of 150 miles, and the longest trip you make 99% of the time is 100 miles (this matches the driving patterns of nearly everyone), then overnight home charging is sufficient. We can probably do 300+ miles at this point, effectively making the fast recharge issue moot. Nevertheless, we are working on charging stations where you can charge in 30 minutes, about the same amount of time you might spend at a once every few hours rest stop. Anyway, there's a great thread on EVs over at CPF Green. No need to discuss them further here.


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## yliu

I believe there are pill sized plasma bulbs with 140lm per watt efficency, And I believe that it goes plenty bright before reaching it's limits as it outshines an street lamp with no problem.


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## Lynx_Arc

yliu said:


> I believe there are pill sized plasma bulbs with 140lm per watt efficency, And I believe that it goes plenty bright before reaching it's limits as it outshines an street lamp with no problem.


 
There must be some reason why LEDs are being used in street lamps instead of these bulbs....


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## beerwax

............


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## Lynx_Arc

Yes that is for the most part why LEDs are making it into stoplights for sure now and streetlights also but as the efficiency improves to the point of matching or beating current low pressure sodium and metal hydride lamps then both longevity and energy savings will add to the mix. We don't have LED streetlights here yet but we do have LEDs in stoplights in places and it is not easy to tell which ones but typically they more richer colors.


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## AUKS

I think LED as a lighting source will have a much longer history , As we see , it is still very new for normal family , and it is not widely applicated here and there,even many goverment announce to use LED lightings . 

LED is saving energy and protecting environment , i personally hope we can popularize the led lighting . Make our earth more safe!


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## peruandarts

I guess the plasma light bulbs. Try to find more information about it.

Greetings,
Marcelo


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## hellachinese

Excuse me for such the newb question; what physical properties limit LEDs from getting brighter and more powerful?


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## JLumens

ebow86 said:


> Do we have any ideas on what hypothetically could replace the LED in the future? I know LED technology isn't that old, and it is getting better and better everyday but is there any technology on the horizon that could be superior to LED's in terms of efficiency and output? Any theory's on what lies down the road 25 or 50 years from now? Do you think that LED is here to stay for a long time?


[video]<iframe width="960" height="720" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/J762PX7drB8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/video]


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## willpine

I thought oled's were already more efficient. Is that correct?


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## yliu

willpine said:


> I thought oled's were already more efficient. Is that correct?



OLED technology is used in displays for TV and mobile devices. I've never heard of OLED used as source of illumination.


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## EZO

yliu said:


> OLED technology is used in displays for TV and mobile devices. I've never heard of OLED used as source of illumination.



I posted this video once before in a similar thread but it was quite some time ago and I forget where. In any event, I think it may address your question about OLED as a lighting technology.



Also: http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/incredibe-oled-lighting-installations-by-philips.html


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## videoman

Just curious about this plasma technology. What is needed to drive the LEP "bulb" as far as voltage Vf, current, or Dc requirements ? does it use a driver like the led uses ? A special RF transformer ? Will one be able to replace the led with the LEP as a direct swap? Cannot seem to find any powering requirements anywhere.
If it is anything like a HID with a transformer/black box thingy thetered to it, them I am definitely not interested regardless of the lumen/watt figure.


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## bshanahan14rulz

Quantum light cells that slow light down to a crawl, and re-release it 6-12 hours later.


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## yliu

EZO said:


> I posted this video once before in a similar thread but it was quite some time ago and I forget where. In any event, I think it may address your question about OLED as a lighting technology.
> 
> 
> 
> Also: http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/incredibe-oled-lighting-installations-by-philips.html




Cool! Never knew that, I can imagine a whole ceiling covered by this OLED layer giving a very nice diffused light! 

Although it doesn't seem suitable for directed lighting like car headlamps or flashlights. 

One of its drawbacks is, I think, is that it does not pack enough lumens in a small space.


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## EZO

yliu said:


> Cool! Never knew that, I can imagine a whole ceiling covered by this OLED layer giving a very nice diffused light!
> 
> Although it doesn't seem suitable for directed lighting like car headlamps or flashlights.
> 
> One of its drawbacks is, I think, is that it does not pack enough lumens in a small space.



Your observations are correct but keep in mind that OLED is a young technology and it is improving rapidly. The first ones were not bright enough for practical lighting. Now Phillips has introduced the first OLED panel to hit the "functional lighting" barrier as they call it with brightness of 115 lm. Their new panels have luminance of 4,000 cd/m2, the color temperature is 3,250K and the CRI is over 90. The panel's lifetime is 10,000h. The problem at this point is efficiency, which needs to improve dramatically for OLED to become practical. Then again, in the early 1960s LEDs were only bright enough to be used as indicator lamps, they only came in red and they were very expensive. It is easy to forget that here in 2012 and I suspect the same will eventually be true of OLED lighting some years from now.


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## yliu

videoman said:


> Just curious about this plasma technology. What is needed to drive the LEP "bulb" as far as voltage Vf, current, or Dc requirements ? does it use a driver like the led uses ? A special RF transformer ? Will one be able to replace the led with the LEP as a direct swap? Cannot seem to find any powering requirements anywhere.
> If it is anything like a HID with a transformer/black box thingy thetered to it, them I am definitely not interested regardless of the lumen/watt figure.



I am not an expert in this, but after reading some articles.

Plasma bulbs seem to have some major flaws to be worked out. Like it requires a lot of power to light up a plasma bulb, short life, lot of heat, and that although the bulb is not big it needs to be powered by radio frequency generators of some sort which also took up plenty of space.


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## EricB

Isn't plasma older technology that generates a lot of heat? 
It does seem OLED is being built up as the next thing after LED, for lighting (in addition to signage).


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## Dankung

Next generation HID will replace LED


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## Glenn7

I think maybe white laser will.


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## yliu

Glenn7 said:


> I think maybe white laser will.



Does it exist?


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## Glenn7

by mixing RGB you get white, kind of like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBRNPQWJk5I

http://www.rog8811.com/whitelaserpointer.htm


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## fishndad

I dont know but the video was a farce.

It looked like they took a cheap Amazon cree aspheric light and compawed it to this huge spot light the size of my Kicker Subwoofer.


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## 65535

The real concern with this LEP "technology" is that you have a microwave antenna pumping whatever amount of power into the puck which directs the energy into the fused quartz tube to heat the mixture. That is inherently more complicated and potentially dangerous than current lighting technology. It posses the dangers of HID lamps with the dangers of high powered RF.

It's an interesting idea but until it can be scaled down I don't see it being a viable alternative to LEDs.


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## metalophile

According to this essay from digikey, the absolute highest efficiency theoretical light source would be a perfect monochromatic source at 555 nm, and would be 686 lm/W. Of course such a source would have a color rendering index of about zero. The same article says the best one can theoretically do with a blue LED with phosphors is 263 lumens/Watt, which is being approached by Cree in the lab (231 lm/W in May 2011). Although the Digikey article is slightly dated, still interesting reading as to the challenges for LED makers to approach the theoretical limits. 

http://www.digikey.com/us/en/techzone/lighting/resources/articles/led-efficacy-improvement.html


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## fyrstormer

It's impossible to say at this point. Plasma bulbs, such as LEP, HID, and fluorescent, all have the advantage of emitting light in all directions at once, whereas LEDs emit light in only a hemisphere. But LEDs are so small they can easily be arrayed to compensate for their deficiencies. Also, with research-grade LEDs achieving real-world efficiencies of 95%, there isn't much room for improvement anyway. I suspect whatever replaces current LEDs will simply improve on the spectral quality of the light, not on the method of operation.


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## rock_007

ebow86 said:


> I don't think plamsa will be replacing LED's anytime soon, LED technology has come too far already. When I started the post, I was thinking someone would know about some radical theoretical technology that could come in the future. Plasma is already an existing technology.



I agree with you, Led lights have came a far long way, Future is never predictable, we can never predict the things that are going to come in future.
Led Lights are widely used in almost every application where earlier forms of lights were used and have replaced all the earlier forms of lights to a great extent. But one can not say when will a new technology replace them, but surely this will not happen on an immediate note.


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## Combatmp

But will any of these new technologies be able to handle the recoil of being a weaponlight?


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## Anders Hoveland

Well, it is not _more_ efficient, but it does offer the promise of much higher CRI:

These organic semiconductor polymer strips could eventually replace fluorescent lighting. They have a much better quality of light, and are comparable in efficiency to current LEDs. They contain multi-walled carbon nanotubes and operate best on 80 kHz frequency current.
http://www.gizmag.com/fipel-alternative-fluorescent-lights/25287/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1566119912004831


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## AnAppleSnail

Anders Hoveland said:


> Well, it is not _more_ efficient, but it does offer the promise of much higher CRI:
> 
> These organic semiconductor polymer strips could eventually replace fluorescent lighting. They have a much better quality of light, and are comparable in efficiency to current LEDs. They contain multi-walled carbon nanotubes and operate best on 80 kHz frequency current.
> http://www.gizmag.com/fipel-alternative-fluorescent-lights/25287/
> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1566119912004831



I'm still not sold on the benefits of FIPEL. Pre-energy-star certs and lifespan tests (And actual figures about light quality!) I'm inclined to take a new take on EL panels with a big fistful of salt.

And carbon nanotubes are the modern asbestos. Even the fuel cell guys are looking for ways to guarantee that the CNTs are fixed in composites.


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## masofshad

Quantum Dots

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_dot#Light_emitting_devices

Specifically tetrapod quantum dots


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## LEDAdd1ct

I just googled the "carbon nanotubes modern asbestos" reference and found it very interesting.

I didn't know about this.

Thanks for the reference.


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## AnAppleSnail

LEDAdd1ct said:


> I just googled the "carbon nanotubes modern asbestos" reference and found it very interesting.
> 
> I didn't know about this.
> 
> Thanks for the reference.



As an interesting anecdote:

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, "The World's First Production Carbon-Fiber Aircraft" uses revolutionary technology and really big *** vacuum ovens to create the body sections out of carbon fiber composite (Carbon fiber and epoxy). But the fittings themselves are made wrong-size and covered in plain old fiberglass (Glass fiber and epoxy) which is sanded down to a tight fit. This removes some weight savings of the advanced material and adds a lot of labor. Why? Because sanded carbon fiber is worse to handle in a maintenance hangar than a heavier aircraft and another assembly step. This is a case where long jagged fibers become peculiarly airborne and pose an inhalation risk.

All this said, asbestos is still used; it's just used carefully (And not as friable melt-spun fibers). No CNT that remain in a product can harm you by inhalation, but production, assembly, maintenance, and end-of-life handling require some thought.


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## Cannybar

I think that could be old news for many, but anyone have thoughts on laser lights?
I'm talking about the stuff BMW and probably other car manufacturers are putting in their future headlights.


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## tarrow

Plasma lights are too hot and require to much collateral parts besides the bulb and power source to be of any use in a mobile device in the near future. Some film projector people, indoor plant growers and planted tank enthusiasts are starting to use plasma lights. From what I have read they are not quite as high yielding for indoor growing of certain plants on a cost basis (compared to Hi pressure sodium lamps ) and a yield per square foot basis and though they seem to be very good for hi-tech planted tanks they are something of a mixed blessing as along with the required CO2, the plants grow too fast and daily tank maintenance becomes excessive at least for show tanks perhaps not for production tanks.


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