GEGA1006-004

Lecture 13 – Light

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 Light

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 Lighting:
200 years of technology, types, and development

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History of Lighting

• About 2 million years ago, there is

only natural light available.
• Fire occurred as natural incident and
human has no control of it.

“Work after sunrise, rest after sunset”

日出而作,日落而息

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 History of Lighting

• About 300,000 years ago human began to learn how to generate fire.
• With it, human has warm, security, and light.

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 History of Lighting

白熾燈 熒光管、熒光燈 發光二極管

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 From Fire to Electricity

光
功
效 Direct sunlight : 93 lm/W
HID = high intensity discharge
白熾燈

From: Jeff Tsao, IEEE Circuits and Devices

Vol 20, No 3, pp 28-37, May/June, 2004

• The right axis indicates the corresponding power-conversion efficiency for a tri-LED-color white-light
source with moderate color rendering (CRI = 80) and relatively warm color temperature (CCT = 3900 K,).
For such a source, 400 lm/W would correspond to 100% power-conversion efficiency.
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 PIA-3

What is the full name of ‘LED’?

Light emitting diode

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 History of Lighting - Candle

A candle is an ignitable wick embedded in wax or another flammable solid substance

such as tallow (動物脂) that provides light.

wick

wax

• The earliest surviving candles originated in Han China

around 200 BC (公元前), and were made from whale
（鯨） fat.
• European candles of antiquity were made from various
forms of natural fat, tallow, and wax.

2023/10/28 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candle 9
 History of Lighting

白熾燈

Incandescent lamp

an electric light with a wire filament heated

to such a high temperature that it glows with
Thomas Alva Edison visible light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb

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 200 Years of Lighting Technology, 1850-2050
Fire
Burning of wood and
wax (蜡): e <0.1%
Burning of oil and
kerosene: e <1%
With fire hazard (危险)

Incandescent lamp
Invented in 1880s
Heating a filament in
evacuated bulb
e ~ 3.5%,
Safer and cleaner
Waste as heat…

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 200 Years of Lighting Technology, 1850-2050

Fluorescent lamp
Invented in 1950
Excited Hg vapour
→ UV
→ phosphors
e ~ 20-40% Solid state lighting (SSL)

Light emitting diodes (LEDs)

The red LEDs, invented by Holonyak in the 1960s, are based on AlGaAs
and GaPAs materials. The blue and green LEDs, invented by Nakamura
in the 1990s, are based on GaN and InGaN materials.
e: approaching 80% recently.

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 Types of electric lighting
➢ Incandescent light bulbs ( 白 熾 燈 泡 ): produces light with a
filament wire heated to a high temperature by an electric current
passing through it, until it glows.

➢ Fluorescent lamps: a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge

lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric
current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave
ultraviolet light that causes a phosphor coating on the inside of the
lamp to glow.

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 Types of electric lighting

➢ Light-emitting diodes: a two-lead semiconductor light source.

It is a p-n junction diode, which emits light when activated.

When a suitable voltage is applied to the leads, electrons are able

to recombine with holes within the device, releasing energy in the
form of photons.

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 Light color

The electromagnetic spectrum

• The human eye is capable of seeing
a range of colors in the
electromagnetic spectrum.
• If a light source produces enough
light within this range, most people
will be able to see it and perceive (
察觉) the color.
• When light hits an object, some (or
all) of the light is reflected by it,
while some is absorbed.

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/sustainbus/120434EnEffLight.pdf

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 Solar spectrum and human eye color response

47% 51%
2%

• The white sunlight is a continuous spectrum spanning from violet to red.

• The evolution of vision in human is optimized with respect to the solar
radiation such that the human spectral response peaks at the peak of the
solar spectrum.
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 PIA-4
Human lighting has a long developed history. Please re-
arrange the technology with regard to the time advancing.
[a. candle; b. Light emitting diode; c. fluorescent light; d.
incandescent lamp.]

A. a-c-d-b

B. a-d-c-b

C. a-d-b-c

D. a-c-b-d

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Color temperature

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Color temperature of some particular light sources

color
Cool
多雲

Warm
color

http://www.frostelectric.com
/index.jsp?path=colortempli
ght&p=lighting
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 Color temperature

• The color temperature of a light 冷暖色

source is the temperature of an
ideal black-body radiator that
radiates light of a color
comparable to that of the light
source.
• Color temperatures over 5000 K
are called "cool colors" (bluish
white), while lower color
temperatures (2700–3000 K) are
called "warm colors" (yellowish
white through red).
• “Warm” in this context is an
analogy to radiated heat flux of
traditional incandescent
lighting rather than temperature.

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 Color temperature

• All light is measured using the Kelvin scale. This measures the temperature of the
light using a “K” or kelvin.
• Color with a lower kelvin appears more red, while a higher number represents a
more blue look.

• The temperature scale begins

around the 1000K range, which
you can equate to the look of a
candle flame or match fire.
• As temperature increases, light
appears more yellow, then white,
then blue. Incandescent bulbs
and halogen lights are found
around the 3000K range, and
direct sunlight is measured at
4800K.

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LED color temperature examples

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Fluorescent lamp

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 Fluorescent lamp (Gas discharge lamp)

• A fluorescent lamp is a sealed

glass tube containing a small
amount of mercury and an
inert gas, typically argon,
kept under very low pressure.
• The inside of the glass tube is
coated with a phosphor
powder.
• The tube has two electrodes,
one at each end, which are
wired to an AC electrical
circuit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLEHNYWQl68 1 min
http://home.howstuffworks.com/fluorescent-lamp2.htm

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 Fluorescent lamp (Gas discharge lamp)

• phosphor powder Phosphors

are materials that exhibit the phenomenon
of luminescence, i.e. they emit light when
exposed to radiation such as ultraviolet
light or an electron beam.

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 Fluorescent lamp (Gas discharge lamp)

1. Free electrons (E) from the heated filaments are

introduced to ionize the gas (A).
2. An electric current is passed through the ionized
gas; electrons and gas move quickly from one
end of the tube to the other.
3. The energy of the electrical current changes the
mercury from liquid to gas (M).
Source: http://home.howstuffworks.com/fluorescent-lamp2.htm

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Fluorescent lamp (Gas discharge lamp)

1. Collisions with moving particles (electrons and

ions) excite the mercury gas atoms.
2. In an excited mercury atom, an electron jumps to
a higher energy level.
3. When the electron falls back to its original level,
the atom releases the extra energy in the form of
an ultraviolet (UV) photon.

1. UV photons released by the mercury excite atoms

in the tube’s phosphor coating.
2. In each phosphor atom, the energy of the UV
photon boots an electron to a higher energy level.
3. When the electron falls back to its original
energy level, the atom releases energy as a
visible light photon.

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Light emitting diodes (LED)

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 LED: How It Works

• A light-emitting diode (LED) is a two-lead

semiconductor light source.
• It is a p-n junction diode that emits light when
activated. 二極管
• When a suitable voltage is applied to the leads,
electrons are able to recombine with holes
within the device, releasing energy in the form of
photons.
• This effect is called electroluminescence, and the
color of the light (corresponding to the energy of
the photon) is determined by the energy band
gap of the semiconductor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode 40
 LED: How It Works

• The diode has two regions separated by a junction.

• The p region is dominated by positive electric charges, and the n region is dominated by
negative electric charges.
• The junction acts as a barrier to the flow of electrons between the p and the n regions.
• Only when sufficient voltage is applied to the diode:

• Current flows across a diode

• Negative electrons move one way and positive

holes move the other way

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 LED: How It Works

• The holes exist at a lower potential

energy level than the free electrons.

• Therefore when a free electrons falls it losses its potential

energy.

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LED: How It Works

• This electric potential energy is

converted to electromagnetic
energy or in a form of a photon,
i.e. light.

• The color of the light is determined by the fall of

the electron and hence energy of the photon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH9LI973H8w 1:17

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4L8gfzi3sE 3min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GQq8W5xu3c 5 min

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 LED: How It Works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH9LI973H8w 44
 Application of LEDs - brake lights

• LEDs, emit light of a single color, no color filtering is needed.

• The first big applications for LEDs is brake lights, first in trucks
and buses and then for automobiles.
• It is an issue of safety rather than efficiency.

• It takes about a quarter of a second to warm

up a filament to emit light in incandescent
light bulbs .

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 Applications of LEDs
• The next big application for LEDs is
traffic lights. The motivation in this
case includes efficiency, traffic safety
and maintenance.

• Another application is giant outdoor

video displays taking advantage of the
efficiency and real time control.

• The hottest emerging applications for

LEDs are the backlighting for liquid-
crystal displays, LED displays, and
lighting. Recently, yellow is added to
create a RYGB display, not just a RGB
display.
Adding Yellow pixel makes pictures more vivid
http://www.aquos- (鮮艶), such as “Yellow flower”, “Gold metal”,
world.com/en/product/4_color_innovation.html or “Emerald green-翠綠".
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Nobel Prize for LEDs

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 Efficiencies of incandescent, fluorescent & solid state lighting technologies

All spectra
Spectral Power Distribution

100%-Efficient SSL
0.1 normalized to 1W CCT 3,800K 400 lm/W
wallplug power

21%-Efficient
0.01 Fluorescent
(W/nm)

CCT 3,500K 85 lm/W

3.5%-Efficient
Incandescent
0.001 CCT 3,000K 14 lm/W

14%-Efficient 58 lm/W SSL

0.0001 Commercial
Late-2009
Warm-White CCT 3,100K
Driven at 0.7A
1E-05
300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Wavelength (nm)
From: JY Tsao, 2010
Incandescence: red
Fluorescence: blue
Late 2009 commercial SSL : black; now close to 50%
Ultimate SSL : white

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 Comparison Chart
LED Lights vs. Incandescent Light Bulbs vs. CFLs

http://www.designrecycleinc.com/led%20comp%20chart.html

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≥ 100 W
≥ 60 W
≥ 15 W

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