radiation & led lights

i work at a radiology facility and i was wondering if the radiation would damage my lights? thanks

Shooter21 said:

i work at a radiology facility and i was wondering if the radiation would damage my lights? thanks

Click to expand...

I've done a bit of relevant research. The short answer according to NASA seems to be "human-survivable doses don't have much effect on LED lights." For more information, you might have to X-ray a bare LED and see what happens to it. I'm unsure of the details, but here's a paper on pdf X-ray effects on optoelectronics that basically says "A lot of X-rays had little effect."

This NASA paper is one of their studies on electronics they'd like to use in space missions. Few other people study the effects of radiation on electronics. PDF. It seems that only displacement is a problem - proton radiation and maybe alpha/beta/gamama that can kick atoms off should effect LEDs. Ionization isn't a big factor. An alternate (dimmer) LED construction is more resistant to atom displacement, but I don't know if they are sold.


edit: In summary, a flashlight in your pocket shouldn't experience many detrimental effects barring conditions that should put you in a lead-lined coffin. LED fixtures in an irradiation chamber (? do these exist ?) might be exposed long enough to degrade over thousands of hours - if you have really nasty radiation. Unless you're making to-be-sealed-forever-because-of-radioactive-transmutation chambers, I think maintenance cycles won't be overly effected. Note: I'm not a nuclear engineer, I just read things. Don't take the above too seriously if safety or lots of money is involved.

Not an expert by any means, but in layman terms - radiation is a hazard to organic cellular/molecular structure, and not to inorganic objects.

shane45_1911 said:

Not an expert by any means, but in layman terms - radiation is a hazard to organic cellular/molecular structure, and not to inorganic objects.

Click to expand...

yea i was thinking this was the case but one time my Playstation portable went thru an xray scanner at the airport and it started to act funny afterwards so radiation does seem to have some effect on electronics.

Shooter21 said:

yea i was thinking this was the case but one time my Playstation portable went thru an xray scanner at the airport and it started to act funny afterwards so radiation does seem to have some effect on electronics.

Click to expand...

Usually it's not the X-rays themselves, but the large and intense magnetic field created as a side effect by the X-ray machine.

I put my energizer flashlight through the X-Ray daily, I also see them in X-Rays daily as I work on them. I am pretty sure it doesn't do any damage and never heard of it doing any damage to electronics. Except when they fall off the exiting part of the X-Ray or go surfing onto the floor. I try to guess what kind of flashlight it is every time I see one. Thought I saw a Quark Turbo last week, or maybe it was a G5.

Unless you are doing MRIs and the magnetic signature of the light pulls you in...heheheh