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Light Emitting Diodes: Digital Clocks Remote Controls

LEDs are semiconductors that emit light when electric current passes through them. They are found in many electronic devices like clocks, remote controls, watches. LEDs have several advantages over traditional light bulbs - they don't get hot, last much longer, and are becoming popular as replacements for incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs due to their high efficiency and lack of toxic materials. Recent advances allow LEDs to be used as backlights for thin, energy efficient LED-backlit LCD TVs which produce better images than previous TV technologies.

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54 views

Light Emitting Diodes: Digital Clocks Remote Controls

LEDs are semiconductors that emit light when electric current passes through them. They are found in many electronic devices like clocks, remote controls, watches. LEDs have several advantages over traditional light bulbs - they don't get hot, last much longer, and are becoming popular as replacements for incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs due to their high efficiency and lack of toxic materials. Recent advances allow LEDs to be used as backlights for thin, energy efficient LED-backlit LCD TVs which produce better images than previous TV technologies.

Uploaded by

sathish
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Light emitting diodes, commonly called LEDs,

are real unsung heroes in the electronics world.


They do dozens of different jobs and are found
in all kinds of devices. Among other things, they
form numbers on digital clocks, transmit
information from remote controls, light up
watches and tell you when your appliances are
turned on. Collected together, they can form
images on a jumbo television
screen or illuminate a traffic light.

Basically, LEDs are just tiny light bulbs that fit


easily into an electrical circuit. But unlike
ordinary incandescent bulbs, they don't have a
filament that will burn out, and they don't get
especially hot. They are illuminated solely by
the movement of electrons in
asemiconductor material, and they last just as
long as a standard transistor. The lifespan of an
LED surpasses the short life of an incandescent
bulb by thousands of hours. Tiny LEDs are
already replacing the tubes that light
up LCD HDTVs to make dramatically thinner
televisions.
A diode is the simplest sort
of semiconductor device. Broadly speaking, a
semiconductor is a material with a varying
ability to conduct electrical current. Most
semiconductors are made of a poor conductor
that has had impurities (atoms of another
material) added to it. The process of adding
impurities is called doping.

In the case of LEDs, the conductor material is


typically aluminum-gallium-arsenide (AlGaAs).
In pure aluminum-gallium-arsenide, all of the
atoms bond perfectly to their neighbors, leaving
no free electrons (negatively charged particles)
to conduct electric current. In doped material,
additional atoms change the balance, either
adding free electrons or creating holes where
electrons can go. Either of these alterations
make the material more conductive.

Light is a form of energy that can be released


by an atom. It is made up of many small
particle-like packets that have energy and
momentum but no mass. These particles, called
photons, are the most basic units of light.

Photons are released as a result of moving


electrons. In an atom, electrons move in orbitals
around the nucleus. Electrons in different
orbitals have different amounts of energy.
Generally speaking, electrons with greater
energy move in orbitals farther away from the
nucleus.
While all diodes release light, most don't do it
very effectively. In an ordinary diode,
the semiconductormaterial itself ends up
absorbing a lot of the light

energy. LEDs are specially constructed to


release a large number of photons outward.
Additionally, they are housed in a plastic bulb
that concentrates the light in a particular
direction. As you can see in the diagram, most
of the light from the diode bounces off the sides
of the bulb, traveling on through the rounded
end.

For decades, 100-watt incandescent light


bulbs have lit up hallways and bedrooms; 60-
watt incandescents have shone softer light from
reading lamps and closets. But incandescent
lights have some problems. They're inefficient,
wasting lots of energy as heat, and have
shorter lifespans than fluorescent lamps.
Recently,compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs have
become popular alternatives to incandescent
bulbs thanks to lower power consumption.
Where incandescent lights last an average of
around 1,000 hours, CFLs can last 8,000 hours.
Unfortunately, CFLs contain toxic
mercury that makes them potentially
hazardous and a pain to dispose of
[source: Design Recyle Inc].

Enter the LED light bulb. LEDs offer the


advantages of CFLs -- lower power
consumption and longer lifetimes -- without the
downside of toxic mercury. For example, a 60-
watt incandescent light bulb draws more than
$300 worth of electricity per year and provides
about 800 lumens of light; an equivalent
compact fluorescent uses less than 15 watts
and costs only about $75 of electricity per year.
LED bulbs are even better, drawing less than 8
watts of power, costing about $30 per year, and
lasting 50,000 hours or longer [source: Design
Recyle Inc]. There are only 8,760 hours in a
whole year -- imagine how long an LED bulb
would last in the average home!

LEDs have come a long way since the early


days of lighting up digital clock faces. In the
2000s,LCD TVs took over the high definition
market and represented a huge step over old
standard definition CRT televisions. LCD
displays were even a major step above HD
rear-projection sets that weighed well over 100
pounds ( 45.4 kilos). Now LEDs are poised to
make a similar jump. While LCDs are far thinner
and lighter than massive rear-projection sets,
they still use cold cathode fluorescent tubes to
project a white light onto the pixels that make
up the screen. Those add weight and thickness
to the television set. LEDs solve both problems.

Have you ever seen a a gigantic flatscreen TV


barely an inch thick? If you have, you've seen
an LED television. Here's where the acronyms
get a bit confusing: those LED TVs are still LCD
TVs, because the screens themselves are
comprised of liquid crystals. Technically,
they're LED-backlitLCD TVs. Instead of
fluorescent tubes, LEDs shine light from behind
the screen, illuminating the pixels to create an
image. Due to the small size and low power
consumption of LEDs, LED-backlit TVs are far
thinner than regular LCD sets and are also
more energy efficient. They can also provide a
wider color gamut, producing more vivid
pictures.
CHEMISTRY
PROJECT
DONE BY,
R.S.VISHAL

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