Materials expertise for LEDs

In recent years, the light-emitting diode (LED) has established itself as a universal artificial light source. Modern high-power LEDs offer numerous advantages in terms of efficiency, compactness, lifetime and environmental protection as compared to conventional incandescent and energy-saving lamps. The tuneability of its light and its small size opens up completely new possibilities for lighting design.

 

Increased demands

As the LED is established as lighting element, the task is now to further develop the technology for increased demands. Light management by intelligent control systems for interactive or automated control and energy saving (»Smart Lighting«) as well as advanced lighting concepts for stimulating the biological effects of light on humans (»Human Centric Lighting«) place new demands on the lighting environment. The digitalisation of processes in product development (»Digital Prototyping«), the networking of luminaires for monitoring the operating status (»Predictive Maintenance«) and for the distributed acquisition of sensor data (»Internet of Things«) also represent tasks for development.

 

New Challenges

New challenges not only consist of improving the LED chips, but also in the phosphors and encapsulation materials. In addition to the efficiency of the LEDs and the phosphor, reliability and colour stability are also important aspects. The thermal management in LEDs and LED modules  is of crucial importance.

 

Research and development

In the field of phosphors, our range of services consists of the evaluation, design, and development of phosphors and phosphor systems with the aim of improving their efficiency, reliability, and colour stability. In order to do so, we apply comprehensive optical and spectroscopic analyses, thermal and microstructural characterizations at the Fraunhofer Application Center in Soest as well as investigations into the long-term stability of light-emitting diodes and lighting elements.

The output of our research activities have led to phosphor-doped glasses and glass ceramics for lighting and lighting technology as well as medical diagnostics. Further research fields include the characterization of optics for light-emitting diodes as well as the microstructuring of optics and phosphors.

Our topics:

• Characterization and assessment of luminaires, light-emitting diodes and phosphors and their long-term stability
• Production and development of phosphor doped lenses and glass ceramics
• Thermal management and photometric und photometric assessment of luminaires, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and LED modules
• Surface and element investigations, thermal and thermokinetic analyses
• Structuring of LED optics and phosphors