Cause of LED Efficiency Droop Finally Revealed

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in collaboration with colleagues at the École Polytechnique in France, have been able to prove the theory behind LED 'droop.' LED droop is the term for how LEDs emit less light when the amount of current being pushed through them goes above a certain level. 'The cost per lumen of LEDs has held the technology back as a viable replacement for incandescent bulbs for all-purpose commercial and residential lighting.' Now that we understand what causes this, we should start to see research go into technology to circumvent LED Droop. 'LEDs have enormous potential for providing long-lived high quality efficient sources of lighting for residential and commercial applications. The U.S. Department of Energy recently estimated that the widespread replacement of incandescent and fluorescent lights by LEDs in the U.S. could save electricity equal to the total output of fifty 1 GW power plants.'" A pre-print of the team's paper is available at the arXiv.

Comments

but won't somebody think of the Mercury?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or toxins, or radio waves, or autism that LEDs cause?

Re:but won't somebody think of the Mercury?

[immaterial]

Whoosh. Sense of humor. Get one.

Re:but won't somebody think of the Mercury?

[__aajfby9338]

LED's don't emit radio waves.

Then you should take them back to the store for a refund.

Re:but won't somebody think of the Mercury?

[Chrisq]

but won't somebody think of the Mercury?

Good ol' Freddy, we still miss him

Re:but won't somebody think of the Mercury?

[alostpacket]

LED's do not emit a sense of humor.
LED's don't emit a 'whooshing' sound (unless you catapult them or use a trebuchet)

Re:multiply

[Anonymous Coward]

Witch!

Don't you come in here and git all European-like and start a-quotin' your Systeme Internationale at me. I likes my units in New Imperial, and thats how's they're gonna stay if I done have anything to done say abouts it.

Re: multiply

[Anonymous Coward]

Great Scott!!! 50 Jiggawatts!?!

Re:multiply

[conorpeterson]

>the total output of fifty 1 GW power plants

Soooo... 50 GW?

Or by my own calculation, 41.32 lightning bolts! Great Scott!

The other reason for LED 'droop'

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo, genius, you misread the resistor markings when you wired up your Arduino circuit.

Re:Darn

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course we would. We all have time machines.

Re:multiply

[NemoinSpace]

In much the same way that 50 inane AC responses does equal the coherency of the parent.
Invariably, like a game of "telephone", the subject switches to cars. -reading at -1 is the only true freedom. Moderation is an oxymoron.

Try the little blue ones

[Anonymous Coward]

The little blue LEDs help me when I start to droop. Call your doctor if you don't stop drooping for more than two hours.

Re:Looking forward to replacing a bulb... never

[Shark]

You have to be a pretty bad driver to end up on top of a traffic light though.

Re:Answer not in summary

[N Monkey]

So, you're saying that instead of an electron falling into a hole causing a photon to be given off, the electrons are all huddled together elsewhere talking about the last episode of Big Bang Theory?

No. They'd be discussing "Quantum Leap"

Re:multiply

[rpresser]

How about enormous aboveground supercapacitors? We could call it .. cloud storage.