Page 74 - Lighting Magazine October 2019

the other ssls The Cirq OLED pendant
by Nadarra Lighting
– gives the LD its intensity, along with the absence of “droop” (the typical drop in LED efficiency as current and temperature increase). By contrast, laser diodes can increase in efficiency with much higher currents than LEDs could handle. Mean- while, laser-phosphor is able to transmit LiFi data 10 times faster than LED-based LiFi can.
One of the pioneering manufacturers of laser- phosphor lighting is California-based SLD Laser, which has offices all over the world. The com- pany has won the LightFair Technical Innovation Award in both 2019 and 2018, along with multiple IES Progress Report listings, Sapphire Awards, and Prism Awards. Among its new products is a 12,000-lumen SkyBeam spotlight for outdoor ap- plications (its laser-phosphor sources are already being used in autonomous vehicle headlights).
Some of the current challenges with laser-phosphor lighting are higher initial costs, lower CRI phosphors to withstand the intensity of lasers, and some ad- ditional safety considerations with laser diodes.
eLectroLumInescence
Like the other SSLs detailed above, electrolumi- nescence (or EL) produces light when electrons and holes recombine at the junction of semicon- ductor layers. Similar to OLEDs, EL can produce broad area panels, neon-looking tapes, and thin, linear “wires” of diffuse light (colored or white) with very little power. EL is often used in instru- mentation panels and night lights.
Portland, Ore.-based manufacturer Ellumiglow sells EL in tape, panel, and “wire” formats for residential as well as consumer electronics ap- plications. It also sells laser-fiber optic sources that they call “Laser Wires,” which emit colored or white light out of the sides of the fiber over its en- tire length. Although EL requires very little power and creates negligible heat, it also produces lower levels of light at a relatively higher cost. As a re- sult, EL is likely to remain in specialty, accent, and instrumentation niches for the foreseeable future.
stay InformeD
Now that showrooms and consumers are familiar with LED lighting, there will be less of a learning curve for showroom staff and consumers to adopt OLED, laser-phosphor, and even electrolumines- cent sources. Consider looking at these “other SSL” sources as ways to differentiate and stay at the forefront of SSL technology. 
David Shiller is a Technical Contributor to enLIGHTenment Magazine and President of Lighting Solution Development, a leading consulting firm to lighting manufacturers.
David has two decades of technical marketing and business development experience in the advanced lighting industry. david@bravobusiness media.com
optical control. This can be turned into remark- ably tight beam angles as small as 1 degree, as well as sources that can throw more than half a mile!
Just like LEDs, LDs produce light of a single wavelength/color. If blue or violet light is combined with special tough phosphors, this can create safe, white light. Laser diodes use even more complex sandwiches of semiconductors to emit light into a reflective cavity (“optical cavity”) that amplifies the intensity of the light until it escapes from a minute opening.
The intensity and directionality of laser diodes also makes them the perfect light source for fiber optic delivery in either colored or white light. Much like LEDs or OLEDs, LDs create light from the combination of electrons and holes at the junction of semiconductor layers within the LDs. Among the important differences is the fact that many laser diodes produce light that is coherent, stimulated emission, rather than the incoherent, spontaneous emissions of LEDs. This means that within a laser diode, photons of the same fre- quency, polarization, and phase create more and more photons travelling in the same direction as the first photons. This amplification – or “gain”
72 enLIGHTenment Magazine | october 2019
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