As a modern culture, we crave artificial white lights -- the brighter
the better, and ideally using less energy than ever before. To meet the
ever-escalating demand for more lighting in more places and to improve
the bulbs used in sports stadiums, car headlights and street lamps,
scientists are scrambling to create better light-emitting diodes (LEDs)
-- solid state lighting devices that are more energy efficient than
conventional incandescent or fluorescent light sources.
Just one
thing stands in the way: "droop," the term for a scientific problem
related to LEDs currently in use. Droop refers to the fact that LED
efficiency falls as operating currents rise, making the lights too hot
to power in large-scale applications. Many scientists are working on new
methods for modifying LEDs and making progress toward cooler, bigger
and brighter bulbs.
Photograph of bright white light (right) achieved using lasers in combination with phosphors next to an image of the phosphor with no illumination. (Credit: K.Denault/UCSB) |
Credit: aipadvances