LEDs have a number of advantages over traditional incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, including smaller size, lower energy consumption, and longer lifespan, making them a highly anticipated future of lighting.
LEDs are currently garnering a lot of attention in the lighting industry. Compared to traditional incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, LEDs are much smaller in size and consume significantly less energy. They don’t require a warm-up period like incandescent bulbs, and they don’t have the flicker time that fluorescent bulbs have when they are powered on. LEDs produce light as soon as you plug them in, so you get the light you need right away. The benefits don’t end there. LEDs emit less harmful waves like ultraviolet light, and they don’t require mercury or discharge gases, so they’re safe to use or break. What’s more, the lifespan of LEDs is semi-permanent as long as they don’t break, so once you’ve taken care of the initial cost, you won’t have any additional expenses. You can also get different colors of light, which can be used for decorative lighting and more. With all these advantages, it won’t be long before LEDs completely replace fluorescent bulbs.
Our planet has a limited amount of resources. However, the number of people living on the planet is growing, and if we assume that the amount of energy consumed per person remains constant as the population grows, the total energy consumption is bound to increase. To accommodate this increase in energy consumption, we must either increase total energy production or reduce energy consumption per person. To reduce energy, we can only do so by reducing the consumption of light energy. Incandescent bulbs have been banned from production and use today because they are inefficient due to their very high energy consumption and short lifespan. Fluorescent bulbs, which are a great alternative to incandescent bulbs, consume much less energy than incandescent bulbs, but modern technology has led to the development of LEDs, which are an even better alternative to fluorescent bulbs.
LED is short for Light Emitting Diode, which is a type of diode. To understand the composition of a diode, there are certain concepts you need to know. The components that make up an atom include the nucleus and the electrons that orbit around it. As these electrons orbit the nucleus, there is a discontinuity of places they can exist, called a shell. These shells are filled from the inside out, and the electrons in the outermost shell are called the outermost electrons. In chemistry, the octet rule explains that each atom is most stable when it has eight outermost electrons. Atoms try to satisfy the octet rule by bonding with other atoms to share electrons.
Silicon, the main material for semiconductors such as diodes, has four outermost electrons, so it will bond with four neighboring silicon atoms and share an electron with each of them to make the outermost electrons eight. At this time, impurities are mixed to make n-type semiconductors and p-type semiconductors. N-type semiconductors are made by mixing atoms with five outermost electrons, which leaves one more electron than silicon alone. This electron is called a valence electron and is electrically negative. P-type semiconductors, on the other hand, are made by mixing impurities with three outermost electrons, which results in one less electron than silicon alone. The missing electron is electrically positive because it is a hole, which is called a positive hole.
Diodes are made by joining n-type semiconductors and p-type semiconductors, which are made by mixing silicon with atoms with three or five outermost electrons. The excess electrons and holes created during fabrication give diodes their main characteristic: rectification, or the ability to make current flow in only one direction.
When the p-type semiconductor is connected to the (+) pole of a power source and the n-type semiconductor is connected to the (-) pole, the surplus electrons in the n-type semiconductor combine with the holes in the p-type semiconductor, and energy is released. When a voltage is applied, electrons in a higher energy state combine with holes in a lower energy state, releasing energy equal to the difference in energy states. By focusing this released energy into the visible light region, we can create an LED that emits light that is visible to our eyes.
Because LEDs cannot be divided into multiple energy differences when fabricated, a single LED can only produce one color. So you can’t make an LED that emits only white light, which is a combination of all colors. Typically, this problem is solved by combining fluorescent materials or complementary colors of light. When using fluorescent materials, the light emission principle is similar to that of fluorescent lights. You combine a fluorescent material around an LED that produces blue or purple, and the fluorescent material produces white. The principle of combining complementary colors to produce white is based on the principle that more light is brighter. In particular, white light is produced by combining complementary colors. These fabrication methods can be used to produce LEDs that produce white light.
