L. E. D.

Light-emitting diode
Discoveries and early devices
Electroluminescence as a phenomenon was discovered in 1907 by the British
experimenter H. J. Round of Marconi Labs, using a crystal of silicon carbide and
a cat's-whisker detector.
In 1961, American experimenters Robert Biard and Gary Pittman working at
Texas Instruments, found that GaAs emitted infrared radiation when electric
current was applied and received the patent for the infrared LED.
The first practical visible-spectrum (red) LED was developed in 1962 by Nick
Holonyak Jr., while working at General Electric Company.
Until 1968, visible and infrared LEDs were extremely costly, on the order of US
$200 per unit, and so had little practical use.
Technology
The LED consists of a chip of semiconducting material doped with
impurities to create a p-n junction. As in other diodes, current flows easily from
the p-side, or anode, to the n-side, or cathode, but not in the reverse direction.
Charge-carrierselectrons and holesflow into the junction from electrodes with
different voltages. When an electron meets a hole, it falls into a lower energy
level, and releases energy in the form of a photon.
The wavelength of the light emitted, and thus its color depends on the
band gap energy of the materials forming the p-n junction.
LED development began with infrared and red devices made with gallium
arsenide. Advances in materials science have enabled making devices with evershorter wavelengths, emitting light in a variety of colors.
Advantages
Efficiency: LEDs emit more light per watt than incandescent light
Color: LEDs can emit light of an intended color without using any color
filters as traditional lighting methods need.
Size: LEDs can be very small (smaller than 2mmp) and are easily
populated onto printed circuit boards.
On/Off time: LEDs light up very quickly.
Cycling: LEDs are ideal for uses subject to frequent on-off cycling, unlike
fluorescent lamps that fail faster when cycled often, or HID lamps that
require a long time before restarting.
Cool light: In contrast to most light sources, LEDs radiate very little heat
in the form of IR that can cause damage to sensitive objects or fabrics.

Slow failure: LEDs mostly fail by dimming over time, rather than the
abrupt failure of incandescent bulbs.
Lifetime: LEDs can have a relatively long useful life.
Shock resistance: LEDs, being solid state components, are difficult to
damage with external shock, unlike fluorescent and incandescent bulbs,
which are fragile.
Focus: The solid package of the LED can be designed to focus its light.

Disadvantage
High initial price: LEDs are currently more expensive, price per lumen,
on an initial capital cost basis, than most conventional lighting
technologies.
Temperature dependence: LED performance largely depends on the
ambient temperature of the operating environment.
Voltage sensitivity: LEDs must be supplied with the voltage above the
threshold and a current below the rating. This can involve series resistors
or current-regulated power supplies.
Light quality: Most cool-white LEDs have spectra that differ significantly
from a black body radiator like the sun or an incandescent light.
Area light source: LEDs do not approximate a point source of light, but
rather a lambertian distribution.
Electrical Polarity: Unlike incandescent light bulbs, which illuminate
regardless of the electrical polarity, LEDs will only light with correct
electrical polarity.
Blue hazard: There is a concern that blue LEDs and cool-white LEDs are
now capable of exceeding safe limits of the so-called blue-light hazard as
defined in eye safety specifications such as ANSI/IESNA RP-27.105:
Blue pollution: Because cool-white LEDs (i.e., LEDs with high color
temperature) emit proportionally more blue light than conventional outdoor
light sources such as high-pressure sodium vapor lamps, the strong
wavelength dependence of Rayleigh scattering means that cool-white
LEDs can cause more light pollution than other light sources.
Droop: The efficiency of LEDs tends to decrease as one increases
current.