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

[yliu]

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.

 

[EZO]

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

 

[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.

 

[bshanahan14rulz]

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

 

[yliu]

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.

 

[EZO]

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.

 

[yliu]

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.

 

[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).

 

[Dankung]

Next generation HID will replace LED

 

[Glenn7]

I think maybe white laser will.

 

[yliu]

I think maybe white laser will.

Does it exist?

 

[Glenn7]

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

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

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[rock_007]

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.

 

[Combatmp]

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

 

[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

 

[AnAppleSnail]

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.