Archive for July 2022
Do We Really Need Better LEDs?
A quarter of a century has transpired since the Nobel Prize winning work that delivered us commercially viable blue- (and thereby, white-) emitting LEDs. In the decades since, tremendous resource investment in gallium-nitride semiconductor based materials, devices, and packaging technologies has revolutionized backlighting for flat-panel displays (both large and small) and is now aimed at the general lighting industry,…
Read MoreROME Needs Red
“…these horrible [LED] lights! Mama mia!!” laments Nathalie Naim, municipal council member for the city of Rome, in a recent New York Times article[1]. The complaint is a legitimate one. Recent outdoor luminaire installations there employ bluish-white LEDs whose illumination contrasts sharply with the “golden” hue of the city’s legacy light sources (e.g., sodium-vapor lamps),…
Read MoreOn Color Temperature and the Mating Habits of Butterflies
Lucrative returns on investment from light-emitting diode (LED) lighting have spurred rampant replacement of traditional light sources, with some of the fastest growth occurring in outdoor roadway lighting. The raw efficacy of LEDs, coupled with tight beam control, offers a substantial reduction in energy consumption “per pole” and a fast payback period. The alluring opportunity…
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