Cause of LED Efficiency Droop Finally Revealed [View all]

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://engineering.ucsb.edu/news/699

[font face=Serif]April 22, 2013

[font size=5]Cause of LED Efficiency Droop Finally Revealed[/font]

NEWS RELEASE

[font size=3](Santa Barbara, Calif. –) Researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara, in collaboration with colleagues at the École Polytechnique in France, have conclusively identified Auger recombination as the mechanism that causes light emitting diodes (LEDs) to be less efficient at high drive currents.

Until now, scientists had only theorized the cause behind the phenomenon known as LED “droop”—a mysterious drop in the light produced when a higher current is applied. The cost per lumen of LEDs has held the technology back as a viable replacement for incandescent bulbs for all-purpose commercial and residential lighting.

This could all change now that the cause of LED efficiency droop has been explained, according to researchers James Speck and Claude Weisbuch of the Center for Energy Efficient Materials at UCSB, an Energy Frontier Research Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Knowledge gained from this study is expected to result in new ways to design LEDs that will have significantly higher light emission efficiencies. LEDs have enormous potential for providing long-lived high quality efficient sources of lighting for residential and commercial applications. The U.S. Department of Energy recently estimated that the widespread replacement of incandescent and fluorescent lights by LEDs in the U.S. could save electricity equal to the total output of fifty 1GW power plants.

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http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.5469