LED bulbs — a form of “solid state” lighting — has certainly entered the home lighting lexicon, but the technology has yet to catch on fire, as it were.
A recent breakthrough by LED manufacturing start-up Bridgelux may have us all seeing more LED in our homes. The company demonstrated 135 lumens per Watt with its Silicon-based LED, which is the industry’s first commercial grade performance for this technology.
Bridgelux’s approach to affordable LED production sees them growing GaN (the semiconductor integral to LEDs) on large, low-cost silicon rather than using the more expensive sapphire and silicon carbide substrates that are more common. Bridgelux’s approach can allegedly deliver a 75% improvement in cost over those current methods.
That’s a lot of lab speak for: be on the lookout for cheaper LEDs. We’ll continue to monitor this space for updates.
Credit: Bridgelux Press Release
