Abstract
Lighting technology is continuously improving for greater comfort, higher power efficiency and due to concerns about health and environment issues. The evolution of lighting technology through conversion of electricity into light led to the revolution in Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). LEDs are given more importance for both indoor and outdoor lighting due to their long life span compared to any other lighting technology; the very high efficiency they reach equivalent to the fluorescent lamps’ technology of today and will certainly surpass in the future; they are also very environment friendly and their price is continuously dropping making them more and more competitive. The objective of this chapter is to present the fundamentals about LEDs, the technology, operation, evolution and lighting applications. LEDs were among the first commercialized semiconductor devices; this chapter also shows why LEDs technology is the lighting technology of the future and the perfect match when considering the environment and the use of green energies. LEDs save more than 80% of energy compared to incandescent light bulbs with an efficiency comparable to fluorescent lamps of today and continuously increasing, a longer life span and a better environmental impact.
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Pode, R., Diouf, B. (2011). Light Emitting Diodes. In: Solar Lighting. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2134-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2134-3_3
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