Incandescent could increase efficiency by 12 times

[Jarhead]

Now, there are some big developments comming for incandescents lights which greatly increase their efficiencies also.

"This could raise the efficiency of an Incandescents electric bulb from 5 percent to greater than 60 percent. "

Looks like an efficiency increase of 12x may be possible.

http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2002/tungsten.htm

[jtr1962]

I read about this somewhere else not too long ago. I wonder if they have complete control over which frequencies are released so that the other big problem with incandescent lighting can be solved-namely the crappy yellowish light. If so, it should be possible to duplicate sunlight exactly with perfect color rendering. I'm still not sure if this will be the future, however. Semiconductor lighting will probably exceed 60% efficiency by 2010, and can theoretically reach 100% (I think ~90%, or 225 lm/W, is a more likely eventual plateau as nothing is ever 100% efficient). It is likely, though, that the efficiency gains after 60% will take a while, so there might be room for the photonic lattice in the interim. Interesting idea, anyway, and it does have other potential applications besides general lighting.

[gwbaltzell]

I remember reading this back in 2002 and thought it was interesting but doubt if I'll ever see an off the self unit using it. You can get fluorescent now that have wall plug efficiencies near 100 lm/W. Halogen that fit common MR16 fixtures near 27 lm/W. These and L.E.Ds will advance while this technology is being developed.

George

[Nerd]

Ah.. but you see, now we can have super throwers with a small length filament and a medium size reflector. Remember the WA 01160? Currently the filament length is 2.184 mm and diameter being 0.813mm, 20 17.25 watts, 5 volts, 326 lumens

If 326 lumens is at 5 percent efficiency, we can have 1304 lumens at 20% efficiency (a modest projection) or we can have 652 lumens with half the filament length and only 8.6 watts, probably a filament life of more than 550 hours too!

AFAIK, any bulb with a filament length of 1 mm or less can perform superbly in a 2" reflector (a.k.a mag reflector) or if you want, a carley 3" reflector. We're talking 300 meters throw with 400 plus lumens left over at worse case scenario. And we're not even overdriving it yet! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

The future is looking bright. LEDs may produce white light, but they seriously lack the photon density we all need for nice long throw (which we'll probably never need but will be nice to have. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img])

I sure am waiting for the day where LED chips are as small as our current 5 mm LEDs and has lumen output like our current best bin Lux 3s. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/drool.gif[/img]