Page 71 - Lighting Magazine December 2019

“A different property of light is being researched to replace electricity in computer processing chips.”
the radio signals in a home or business and typically has a hard-wired connection to the internet service provider, often a cable or telephone company.
LiFi is an emerging technology that uses visible light instead of radio waves to transmit the data to and from our devices. The lighting fixture acts as a router, and the light is flickered at a frequency much too fast for our brains to perceive; that flickering carries the data. Here are some of LiFi’s advantages:
➠ Greater security in that the light doesn’t leave the room and neither does the data — unlike WiFi, which travels through walls and can be more easily intercepted.
➠ Much faster data rates. LED LiFi can transmit roughly 10 times the data per second than WiFi, and laser LiFi can transmit roughly
100 times more data per second than WiFi. The IoT is rapidly increasing the data load
on routers and many believe WiFi data rate capabilities will soon be exceeded. LiFi may solve this need for much higher data rates.
➠ Reduced human exposure to radio waves. Some countries in Europe are beginning
to replace WiFi in schools with LiFi over concerns that WiFi can create potential health problems in children. In this case, white light can replace radio signals, or augment WiFi based on its advantages.
can it repLace eLectricity?
For many of us, the WiFi router in our home is con- nected by a cable to the internet service provider (ISP), which uses fiber optic cables to bring internet service all across a city. Fios by Verizon is a well- known example. Lasers are used in a fiber optic network to transmit data through the optical cables. In this case, laser light is replacing electrical wires to transmit more data, much faster, both to and from the home or business.
A different property of light is being researched to replace electricity in computer processing chips. At a fundamental level, light is composed of pho- tons. Photons can have different polarizations that can be thought of as an orientation of the planar wave nature of light. Photons are described as having left or right circular polarization, or a com- bination of the two. If it’s both polarizations, it is known as “superposition.” The left, right, or both,
The Lightification of Things
PureLiFi’s dongle allows a laptop to receive and transmit data using visible light (LiFi).
DeceMber 2019 | enLIGHTenment Magazine 67