Technology News
Spanish Researchers Develop Sand that Produces White Sun-Like LEDs
The team led by the chemist-technologist Rubén Costa of IMDEA Materials (Madrid) and the chemists Jesús Berenguer of the University of La Rioja and Javier García of the University of Alicante has overcome one of the biggest obstacles in the progress towards new sources of healthier artificial lighting.
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Dynamic In-Car Lighting Scenarios - Osram's Osire E4633i Prototype with Inova's Serial Control Driver
The more autonomous a car becomes, the more the way in which it is used will change. As developments continue toward autonomous driving, more and more attention is being focused on the passenger cell. Light will become an integral part of the passenger cell, taking on functional and design-specific tasks. Previously static light, which could only be switched on and off, has now been given a dynamic dimension with the prototype of the Osire E4633i – with countless design options for car manufacturer.
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Electron Beam Patterning for Full-Color HR OLED Displays
OLED microdisplays are increasingly establishing themselves in consumer-ready wearables and data glasses. In order to meet the requirements for higher efficiency, higher contrast, and higher resolutions in these applications, Fraunhofer FEP scientists have developed a new micropatterning approach for OLEDs on silicon substrates. This might eliminate the use of color filters and shadow masks in the future and allow full-color displays to be developed by means of a new process. An increase in efficiency and considerably broader color gamut have already been demonstrated in first experiments.
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Liquid-Suspended White QD LEDs Achieve Luminous Efficacy Record
Quantum dot (QD) white LEDs that show a luminous efficacy of 105 lm/W have been developed. The QDs are liquid-based and, according to researchers, could help the LEDs achieve an efficacy double that of LEDs that incorporate quantum dots in solid films. With further development, researchers say the new LEDs could reach an efficacy over 200 lm/W.
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InteGreat Project Successfully Researched New Approaches to LED Production
In the InteGreat research project, Osram Opto Semiconductors coordinated a consortium comprising seven partners from science and industry. Between December 2014 and February 2018 the project partners investigated time-honored manufacturing approaches and know-how along the entire LED production process with the aim of identifying potential areas for optimization. The new insights allow for LED products to be given additional superior properties that would have been difficult or even impossible to achieve with the technologies previously used to produce LEDs.
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Intended for High-Performance Computer Chips - Maybe Also Useful for LEDs
The inner workings of high-power electronic devices must remain cool to operate reliably. High internal temperatures can make programs run slower, freeze or shut down. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and The University of Texas, Dallas have collaborated to optimize the crystal-growing process of boron arsenide – a material that has excellent thermal properties and can effectively dissipate the heat generated in electronic devices.
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KAIST Team Develops Flexible Blue Vertical Micro LEDs
In CES 2018, micro LED TV was spotlighted as a strong candidate for replacing the active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) display. Micro LED is a sub-100 um light source for red, green and blue light, which has advantages of outstanding optical output, ultra-low power consumption, fast response speed, and excellent flexibility. Professor Keon Jae Lee from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and his team have developed a low cost production technology for thin-film blue flexible vertical micro LEDs (f-VLEDs).
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Multi-Pixel LED Technology Opens New Horizons for Smart Lighting Applications
The evolution of Multi-Pixel LED technology has initiated a giant leap in the development of intelligent
lighting systems which are most visible in the automotive industry. Now the first hybrid LED provides
smart headlights with more than 1000 individually controllable pixels. Ralph Bertram, who is working on
advanced LED device concepts, and Norbert Harendt, who is developing optics solutions for general
lighting at Osram Opto Semiconductors, show that automotive lighting is just one of the potential areas
in which intelligent selective pixel control can be applied. Options for the use in general lighting, such as
information display for outdoor, indoor, retail or industrial applications, are very versatile.
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Smart Printing: Fraunhofer IAP Develops 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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