Technology News
Smart Printing: Power Generating Films and Luminescent Glass
New inks for inkjet printers make it possible to print organic displays or solar cells on film and glass for the use in architecture, the textile industry and many other industries.
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Scientists Reveal the Fundamental Limitation of In Concentration in InGaN Solid-State Devices
For the first time an international research group has revealed the core mechanism that limits the indium (In) content in indium gallium nitride ((In, Ga)N) thin films - the key material for blue light emitting diodes (LED). Increasing the In content in InGaN quantum wells is the common approach to shift the emission of III-Nitride based LEDs towards the green and, in particular, red part of the optical spectrum, necessary for the modern RGB devices. The new findings answer the long-standing research question: why does this classical approach fail, when we try to obtain efficient InGaN-based green and red LEDs?
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A New Technology Is Changing the Tunable White Solutions
Tunable white LEDs are one key element of human centric lighting. Until today, different solutions are
currently available but none of them is easy to apply or cost effective enough to speed up the diffusion
of human centric lights in building projects. A new approach for tunable white solutions is able to
provide flexible lighting for multiple occasions without sacrificing output or going over project budget.
Phil Lee, Senior Lighting Engineer from Meteor Lighting will compare this new technology, called
ColorFlip™, to conventional tunable white solutions, and talk about current tunable white issues.
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Realizing Highly Efficient QD LEDs with Metallic Nanostructures at Low Cost
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced that a team of their researchers have discovered a technology that enhances the efficiency of Quantum Dot LEDs. Professor Yong-Hoon Cho from the Department of Physics and his team succeeded in improving the efficiency of Quantum Dot (QD) Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) by designing metallic nanostructure substrates.
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VTT and Neonelektro Have Made LED Advertising Boards Light, Flexible and Energy-Efficient
Through a European project, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Neonelektro have developed new types of LED displays that combine the flexibility, low cost and high technical performance enabled by roll-to-roll mass manufacturing technology.
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Supercomputers Aid Discovery of New, Inexpensive Material to Make LEDs with Excellent Color Quality
A team led by engineers at the University of California San Diego has used data mining and computational tools to discover a new phosphor material for white LEDs that is inexpensive and easy to make. Researchers built prototype white LED light bulbs using the new phosphor. The prototypes exhibited better color quality than many commercial LEDs currently on the market.
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100 Years Lighting IP Applications
These IP Snapshots show approximately 100 years of patent applications of the IPC class F21 lighting and the IPC class H05 electric techniques. Both IPC classes are the most relevant in the lighting domain. Annually, over 60,000 applications are filed globally and an increasing number of IP applications is predicted over the next few years. Lighting, in general, and the electronics are, therefore, quite similar in numbers.
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Fraunhofer IIS IoT-Bus: The Secure Communication Bus - Not Just for Lighting
The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS is developing the IoT-Bus with IPv6 support and integrated security concept. It is a communication bus based on EIA/RS-485 and the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which enables a secure and reliable data transmission of measured values and control commands and connectivity to the Internet of Things. The IoT-Bus forms a cross-media communication protocol and unites the two worlds of WPAN and fieldbuses without complex protocol conversion. The novel technology IoT-Bus is developed as part of the SEEDs project.
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LiFi - What It Is, How It Works, What It Provides, How to Apply, and Its Future Prospects
The acronym LiFi (Light Fidelity) was born at the beginning of the 2010s. Its name derives from the very
well-known WiFi (Wireless Fidelity). The term VLC (Visible Light Communication) is used in the restricted
instances of visible light. Mr. Luc Chassage who works for Oledcomm and the Versailles University is
also Scientific Committee President of the Global LiFi Congress that offers 20 lectures dealing with all
aspects of LiFi. He is a profound expert in this technology field. Mr. Chassage explains the functionality,
pitfalls and hurdles to overcome, the disadvantages and advantages, and best practice to apply LiFi.
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Measurement Seminar – from SSL to Displays
For the third consecutive year, Instrument Systems invited engineers from all industries that deal with light measurement of SSL products and different kinds of displays to their seminar. LED professional’s Editor in Chief, Arno Grabher-Meyer, was also pleased to receive (and accept) an invitation. In this article he shows what attendees can expect, who might find this event of interest, who would benefit the most and who should definitely not miss the next opportunity to attend.
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Atomistic Calculations Predict that Boron Incorporation Increases the Efficiency of LEDs
High-power white LEDs face the same problem that Michigan Stadium faces on game day -- too many people in too small of a space. Of course, there are no people inside of an LED. But there are many electrons that need to avoid each other and minimize their collisions to keep the LED efficiency high. Using predictive atomistic calculations and high-performance supercomputers at the NERSC computing facility, researchers Logan Williams and Emmanouil Kioupakis at the University of Michigan found that incorporating the element boron into the widely used InGaN (indium-gallium nitride) material can keep electrons from becoming too crowded in LEDs, making the material more efficient at producing light.
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LpS Gets a Younger Sibling to Foster a Holistic System Approach
For the most part our readers are aware of the fact that the LpS has a
strong focus on the component level, but after the 6th event, the Luger
Research team realized that it was time to find a way to push the more
holistic system approach. After much consideration and careful
planning, the Trends in Lighting (TiL) Forum and Show was initiated
and took place in conjunction with the LpS 2017. Arno Grabher-Meyer,
Editor-in-Chief at LED professional took a close look at both exhibitions
and the lectures to find out what the audience thought of the extension
and broader outlook.
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SoC Technologies in Lighting - Today’s Landscape and Tomorrow's Practices
A system-on-chip (SoC) quite suddenly became an important component in the lighting industry,
fueling IoT innovation and opening new opportunities, while at the same time bringing disruption and
new challenges. With rapid advancements in wireless communication, the impact of connected
technologies on the lighting business will only keep increasing. This means deeper integration with
SoCs and more attention from silicon vendors as they start competing for market share in this
promising segment. But what is the current state of SoC design from the lighting perspective?
Are chipmakers keeping up with the growing expectations for wireless lighting control solutions that
are mature and truly reliable? When developing its complete Bluetooth software stack for professional
lighting, Silvair worked with a number of different SoCs. Therefore, Piotr Winiarczyk, Wireless Solution
Architect, and Szymon Rzadkosz might have found the answers to these questions.
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Phosphors & QDs LED Downconverters Report for Lighting & Displays from Yole Développement
“Volume saturation, price pressure and a shifting intellectual property landscape are forcing the LED phosphor & QDs industry into a rationalization phase,” announces Dr. Eric Virey, Senior Technology & Market Analyst, Yole Développement (Yole).
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Lighting Technology with Dynamic GI by Brilliant Games
Brilliant Games has presented a new lighting system that will be used for the studio’s upcoming titles. The thing is that the technology is said to instantly calculate GI, providing outstanding results.
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NEC Improves Workplace Efficiency with AR Solution Utilizing Smart Glasses
Tokyo, November 7, 2017 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced the development of an Augmented Reality (AR) solution to assist users with the selection of items through the use of smart glasses, a smart watch and new "ARmKeypad" functions. This solution enables users to perform tasks without having to look away from objects, making it ideal for use in manufacturing, logistics and other industries. Currently, NEC is carrying out demonstration tests at a hospital pharmacy and a manufacturing floor, where it has confirmed a reduction in workplace errors and working time thanks to the assistance of the new solution.
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LED Driver Miniaturization - Opening New Opportunities for Solid State Lighting
While LEDs have significantly improved over the past decade, driver technologies have not kept pace and
are, in some respects, the limiting factors for new applications. Size is a particular issue. Dramatically
increasing the switching frequency helps to reduce size but often causes other issues or is costly. Mickey
Madsen, CEO of Nordic Power Converters, explains how his company has overcome the hurdles and
made it feasible by designing very high frequency LED drivers.
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Eviyos LED Prototype Revolutionizes Smart Headlights
The Eviyos prototype developed by Osram Opto Semiconductors is the world’s first hybrid LED and represents major progress toward the first market-ready smart controllable high-resolution LED. As soon as oncoming traffic is detected the appropriate pixels are automatically switched off so drivers of oncoming vehicles are not dazzled. The prototype, integrated in a demonstrator from Osram Specialty Lighting, were on show for the first time at ISAL from September 25 through 27, 2017 in Darmstadt.
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Quantum Dot Based White LEDs for General Illumination
Colloidal quantum dot based white LEDs can be integrated into commercial products meeting the
stringent reliability requirements for general illumination and providing LED efficiency gains of 5% to 15%
over commercial phosphor based LEDs at CCT’s ranging from 5000 K to 2700 K. Unlike earlier
demonstrations, the QD material is applied in an on-chip configuration resulting in drop-in fit, form,
and function compatibility to existing LED based luminaires and lamps. Ken T. Shimizu, Director,
Novel Technologies and Devices, Research and Development, M. Böhmer, D. Estrada, S. Gangwal,
S. Grabowski, H. Bechtel, E. Kang, K. J. Vampola, D. Chamberlin, O. B. Shchekin, and J. Bhardwaj
from Lumileds showcase the advantages of on-chip QD LEDs: A commercial lamp at 3000K color
temperature and 90 CRI is substituted with QD based LEDs resulting in a system level efficiency gain up
to 17%, attributed to the reduced blue LED droop from the lower drive current and the lower heat sink
temperature when compared to the standard phosphor based LED lamp output.
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OLEDs Applied to Paper-Thin Stainless Steel
Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP, a provider of R&D in the field of organic electronics, will be presenting OLEDs on gauzy stainless steel foil during aimcal 2017 in Tampa/USA, from October 15-18, 2017. The novel application on display in Booth 22 was developed in cooperation with the Nippon Steel & Sumikin Materials Co., Ltd. (NSMAT) and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation (NSSMC).
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Tracing the Light Inside an LED
The performance of white LEDs can be improved, based on better knowledge of the absorption and scattering of light inside the LED. A new method, developed by the University of Twente in The Netherlands and Philips Lighting, can lead to efficiency improvement and powerful design tools.
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Nanoparticles Could Spur Better LEDs, Invisibility Cloaks
In an advance that could boost the efficiency of LED lighting by 50 percent and even pave the way for invisibility cloaking devices, a team of University of Michigan researchers has developed a new technique that peppers metallic nanoparticles into semiconductors.
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Brave New World and the Dualism of Light(ing)
The lighting business has been quite
predictable over a long period of time.
Technical changes were introduced
slowly, dominated by a handful of leading
companies, and mostly due to new,
but not disruptive light sources. The life
of engineers was mainly determined by
a manageable number of parameters:
Lighting requirements, light source
parameters, costs, product dimensions,
and the odd, required feature.
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Flexible OLEDs with Adjustable Colors – New Design Options for Lighting Designers
The Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP, one of the leading R&D partners for surface technologies and organic electronics, specializes in the development and fabrication of OLED modules with unconventional properties for specific client designs. The Institute will debut flexible adjustable-color organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) at ISAL 2017 in Darmstadt, Germany from September 25-27, 2017 at its booth (No. 31).
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Green Light from 2D Formamidinium Perovskites for Ultra-Fine Display Colors
Chemical engineers from ETH Zurich have succeeded in generating ultra-pure green light for the first time. The new light-emitting diode will pave the way for visibly improved color quality in a new generation of ultra-high definition displays for TVs and smartphones.
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1000 Hour Quantum Dot LED Milestone Surpassed by Quantum Materials Corp
Leading American Cadmium Free Quantum Dot manufacturer Quantum Materials Corp announced successfully surpassing the 1000 hour continuous on-time durability test for the Company's cadmium-free quantum dots in a remote light emitting diode (LED) application. The testing has been conducted with red and green quantum dots encapsulated in resin and mounted to blue emitting LED's (see diagram below), which are similar to the type of LED's used in standard LCD display back light units (BLU).
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Tech-Talks BREGENZ - Jamie Singerman, Future Lighting Solutions
We recently sat down with Jamie Singerman, Worldwide Corporate Vice President, and Patrick Durand,
Technical Director for Future Lighting Solutions, a leading provider of Solid-State Lighting technologies,
engineering expertise and online simulation and design tools, to discuss the company’s differentiators
and their views on the ever changing lighting market.
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World’s Brightest Laser Sparks New Behavior in Light
Physicists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are seeing an everyday phenomenon in a new light. y focusing laser light to a brightness 1 billion times greater than the surface of the sun — the brightest light ever produced on Earth — the physicists have observed changes in a vision-enabling interaction between light and matter.
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High Conductive Foils Enabling Large Area Lighting
Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP as one of the leading partners for research and development for surface technologies and organic electronics and Sefar AG, a leading manufacturer of precision fabrics from monofilaments, developed a roll-to-roll processed large area flexible OLED during a joint project.
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Future Lighting Solutions Launches the Usable Light Tool for UV and Horticulture Applications
Future Lighting Solutions, the world-class leader and innovator in demand creation, marketing and distribution of solid-state lighting technologies, announces the inclusion of non-visible LEDs and horticultural LEDs to its Usable Light Tool (ULT). Available free of charge to engineers worldwide, the ULT enables lighting designers to simulate usable light from LEDs, allowing the user to make critical LED selection decisions.
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