Efficient task lighting has been a human
concern since early man singed his eyebrows
leaning over the cave fire while perfecting
the flint arrow head late one evening.
Our first control of light came through the
manipulation of fire. Culminating in
candles, lanterns and oil lamps, these
devices create much more heat than light,
consume large amounts of fuel relative to
production of light and are a constant fire
hazard. While effective enough to illuminate
the industrial revolution the “fire-light”
was a dirty technology at best.
A
radical leap in technology emerged with the
incandescing light bulb we are all familiar
with. While not a combustion technology, the
light bulb is a direct descendant of the
candle. The filament (wick) is heated with
electricity in a glass vacuum (bulb) and the
filament glows bright orange until it is
burnt out. A magnificent invention no doubt
but even the light bulb creates more heat
than light and has a limited life span.
Along with
the incandescent light bulb we have the
fluorescent, halogen, and a few other light
sources based on the principle of exciting a
gas with electricity until the gas emits
large amounts of energy. Unfortunately only
some of this energy is visible light, the
rest of the energy is wasted as heat and non
visible light.
Finally we have arrived at the age of solid
state lighting. Solid-state lighting is the
first truly new lighting technology to
emerge for nearly 100 years. Unlike
incandescent or fluorescent lighting,
solid-state lighting creates light with
virtually no heat. A semiconducting material
converts electricity directly into visible
light.
We now
find ourselves in the luxurious position of
having bright and efficient lighting with a
20 year lifespan
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