We are all changing LED lights. What is so good about it?

The appearance of electric lights expelled darkness and brought light to mankind. According to statistics, the world's lighting power consumption accounts for about 20% of the total power generation. As people's demand for lighting increases, looking for more efficient and energy-saving light sources has become one of the important research directions of scientists.

In 2019, the "Key Technologies and Industrialization of High-efficiency and Long-life Semiconductor Lighting" project of the research team of the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. After the industrial application of this so-called third-generation semiconductor lighting technology, it can save my country 270 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, which is equivalent to the power generation of three Three Gorges power stations.

What is LED?

LED in English-light emitting diode literally translates to light emitting diode. Light-emitting diodes are semiconductors that can convert electrical energy into light energy. Commonly known metals such as copper and iron are conductors, and wood and rubber are insulators. The material between the conductor and the insulator is called a semiconductor. Semiconductors have a feature that they can emit bright light after being energized.

What is so good about a lamp made of LED?

1. High efficiency

Using the same electricity to emit stronger light, the most commonly used incandescent lamp electricity is converted into light with an efficiency of 5%, and most of the remaining 95% of the electric energy is converted into heat. Therefore, the incandescent lamp will be especially hot when the lamp is on for a long time.

The conversion rate of energy-saving lamps to light is 30% to 40%, which is a great improvement, but more than half of the electricity is still not used. And there are pollution problems.

The electro-optical transfer rate of LED lights is close to 80%, and almost most of the electrical energy is turned into light.

2. Long life

The service life of an incandescent lamp is about 1,000 hours, and a normal household uses about 2,000 hours a year. If the home is equipped with an incandescent lamp, about two bulbs need to be replaced a year.

The service life of qualified LED light products is about 30,000 hours. Calculated on the basis of 2000 hours of lamp use in a normal family a year, if the LED lamp is installed in the home, it can be used for more than 10 years without replacing it.

In the future, where there is light, there will be LEDs

With the development of technology, the color of LED light source is very single, and after adjustment, it can even emit light in a specific wavelength range, which is difficult for traditional light sources. Plants also have a certain degree of selectivity in the absorption of light. Generally, each plant only absorbs light in a certain wavelength range. Therefore, scientists can tailor the LED light source for each plant, which not only can take advantage of the high light efficiency of the LED light source, but also the light emitted can be completely absorbed by the plant, and the energy utilization rate reaches the highest. In addition to agriculture, LED light sources will be used in more fields such as medical care, health, aerospace, and deep diving in the future.