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LED Lighting As Cheap As CFLs Invented
mcgrew writes "New Scientist reports that a British team has overcome the obstacles to cheap LED lighting, and that LED lamps as cheap as CFLs will be on the market in five years. Quoting: 'Gallium nitride cannot be grown on silicon like other solid-state electronic components because it shrinks at twice the rate of silicon as it cools. Crystals of GaN must be grown at 1000C, so by the time a new LED made on silicon has cooled, it has already cracked, rendering the devices unusable. One solution is to grow the LEDs on sapphire, which shrinks and cools at much the same rate as GaN. But the expense is too great to be commercially competitive. Now Colin Humphreys's team at the University of Cambridge has discovered a simple solution to the shrinkage problem. They included layers of aluminium gallium nitride in their LED design... These LEDs can be grown on silicon as so many other electronics components are. ... A 15-centimetre silicon wafer costs just $15 and can accommodate 150,000 LEDs making the cost per unit tiny.'"
Now Colin Humphreys's team at the University of Cambridge has discovered a simple solution to the shrinkage problem.
Excellent news! Wait, what's this story about?
I have a Clapper that I've been unable to use with CFL bulbs. I'd like to know whether these new LED lights work with the Clapper and other remote-switching appliances.
And it all came about because it's hard to achieve 1000C in a shed.
Lightbulbs getting out of a pool I guess.
The good ole' 5-year technology promise. Close enough to be exciting and get attention, but far enough away that you'll forget about their claim before they miss their deadline.
I just updated the "desktop" image on my OLED t-shirt to read "PowerVegetable is right on!"
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
All in all, a win all around, although - as someone has mentioned here - LEDs are not that 'bright' compared to traditional lighting.
I take it you've never seen a high power LED. All I can say is: don't look into high power LEDs with remaining eye.
That's just what women SAY to make LEDs feel better, but in the end, they always go home with some huge frosted incandescent with a harsh light. And the day after, they'll be crying to their LED friends about how much energy it wasted the night before, how it kept getting hot and leaving burns on her, and how it burned out after only a few thousand uses. And the LED will listen and be supportive, but you know she'll never give it a shot.
Not that I'm BITTER or anything...
Your friendly neighbourhood CDO neat-freak???
Fixed it for you. The letters are now in alphabetical order. LIKE THEY SHOULD BE!
I don't trust lumens either. The lumen output of CFL lighting halves every foot or so from the light source.
It's worse than that, mate. Every time you double the distance, the brightess goes down by a factor of four! So, two feet away, the bulb is a quarter as bright as it was a foot away.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
Since you don't appear to be using it, can I have your pinball machine?
My contempt for the behavior and beliefs of the two major political parties cannot be adequately expressed in 120 chara
Not so for LEDs; their peaks are substantially less sharp. I verified this both with a physicist, and with a diffraction grating. I took pictures, too.
What spectrum did you get when shining the light through a physicist?
My coal plant is 5 miles away, you ignorant clod.