The First White Laser

By Charles Q. Choi 

Image: Arizona State University/Nature Nanotechnology

Scientists and engineers at Arizona State University, in Tempe, have created the first lasers that can shine light over the full spectrum of visible colors. The device’s inventors suggest the laser could find use in video displays, solid-state lighting, and a laser-based version of Wi-Fi.

Although previous research has created red, blue, green and other lasers, each of these lasers usually only emitted one color of light. Creating a monolithic structure capable of emitting red, green, and blue all at once has proven difficult because it requires combining very different semiconductors. Growing such mismatched crystals right next to each other often results in fatal defects throughout each of these materials.

But now scientists say they’ve overcome that problem. The heart of the new device is a sheet only nanometers thick made of a semiconducting alloy of zinc, cadmium, sulfur, and selenium. The sheet is divided into different segments. When excited with a pulse of light, the segments rich in cadmium and selenium gave off red light; those rich in cadmium and sulfur emitted green light; and those rich in zinc and sulfur glowed blue.

The researchers grew this alloy in stages, carefully varying the temperature and other growth conditions over time. By controlling the interplay between the vapor, liquid, and solid phases of the different materials that made up this nano-sheet, they ensured that these different crystals could coexist.

The scientists can individually target each segment of the nano-sheet with a light pulse. Varying the power of the light pulses that each section received tuned how intensely they shone, allowing the laser to produce 70 percent more perceptible colors than the most commonly used light sources.

Lasers could be far more energy-efficient than LEDs: While LED-based lighting produces up to about 150 lumens per watt of electricity, lasers could produce more than 400 lumens per watt, says Cun-Zheng Ning, a physicist and electrical engineer at Arizona State University at Tempe who worked on the laser. In addition, he says that white lasers could also lead to video displays with more vivid colors and higher contrast than conventional displays.

Another important potential application could be "Li-Fi", the use of light to connect devices to the Internet. Li-Fi could be 10 times faster than today’s Wi-Fi, but "the Li-Fi currently under development is based on LEDs," Ning says. He suggests white-laser based Li-Fi could be 10 to 100 times faster than LED-based Li-Fi, because the lasers can encode data much faster than white LEDs.

In the future, the scientists plan to explore whether they can excite these lasers with electricity instead of with light pulses. They detailed their findingsonline 27 July in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Article from: http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/devices/the-first-white-laser?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+IeeeSpectrum+%28IEEE+Spectrum%29

GPS-Enabled Lighting to Save Oceanside, California, More than Half a Million Dollars Annually

As part of its commitment to reduce energy consumption, the City of Oceanside recently installed more than 7,700 GE LED roadway fixtures equipped with a GPS-enabled controls system.

Expected to drive energy and maintenance savings of approximately $600,000 annually, the installation of GE LED fixtures with LightGrid™ controls continues to position the city as a leader in connected and energy-saving solutions.

GPS-Enabled Roadway Fixtures
As part of the LightGrid controls system, Oceanside’s Public Works team now has a real-time view of how each of the 7,700 street lights across the city is operating. The solution includes a GPS chip on every fixture via the LightGrid node or photo control, allowing the city to monitor each light through a Web-based interface and immediately respond to maintenance or operational needs.

The controls system also allows the city to activate more precise “on/off” and street-light dimming schedules, particularly in low-traffic areas and during overnight hours, to save the city in energy-related costs.

“Illuminating our city with GE’s LED street lights with LightGrid gives us control like we’ve never had before,” said Kiel Kroger, Oceanside Public Works division manager. “We’re able to efficiently light roadways in a way that makes sense for how our city operates day to day, all while reducing our energy bills.”

GE’s LED street lights equipped with LightGrid™ outdoor wireless controls provides superior illumination, control and savings in Oceanside, Calif.

Intelligent City
Energy-efficient lighting is a part of a greater initiative—the Green Oceanside campaign, which was established to educate residents, businesses and visitors and to implement programs for energy efficiency, recycling, water conservation, energy conservation and more.

The Oceanside Public Works department was driven to complete this lighting project because of its potential to realize large energy and maintenance savings.

Replacing legacy high pressure sodium (HPS) street lights is expected to reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 1.7 million pounds, which is equal to removing nearly 150 cars from the road or adding more than 200 acres of forest.

“The feedback from citizens and city staff has been just as important as the anticipated energy and cost savings,” said Kroger. “Citizens of Oceanside like the fixture style and the light quality produced, while city staff are also pleased by the energy and maintenance savings and expected return on investment.”

In addition, it helps the city promote energy efficiency and inch closer to its goal of leveraging data and operating as a more intelligent city, Kroger said.

Additional upgrades include 900 city park light fixtures, parking lights, pier and decorative lights in the downtown area.

Article from: http://pressroom.gelighting.com/news/gps-enabled-lighting-to-save-oceanside-california-more-than-half-a-million-dollars-annually#.VbjGFrNVhBc

LEDs will slash energy use for lighting by 95%

Efficient LED lights are appearing more and more in homes, businesses and industry. Today, LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) use about 85% less electricity than a conventional lighting source such as an incandescent bulb. They may soon use even less.

This is a significant reduction. Around 19% of the world’s electricity demand is used for lighting; compared to just 3% goes to smelting aluminium – although in Australia we only use about 12% of our electricity for lighting and 8% for smelting aluminium.

A simple (but not perfect) measure for lighting efficiency is the number of lumens (a measure of light intensity) a lighting source produces per watt.

A conventional incandescent bulb gets 13 lumens per watt to light your room, while a replacement LED bulb from Philips that can be bought at Coles or Woolworths achieves 80 lumens per watt (a compact fluorescent globe gets about 60 lumens per watt – see technical note at the end)

So, where is LED lighting going?

CREE (the industry leader who, it is speculated, may purchase the next best, Philips’ Lumileds division) has successfully demonstrated Light Emitting Diodes running at 300 Lumens per watt in the lab.  CREE currently sell a $10, 9.5W bulb (available in the US), which produces 85 Lumens per watt and can directly replace an old style 60W globe.

Other breakthroughs and innovations are contributing to achieving higher efficiency’s in LED lighting, 

including a breakthrough by German researchers http://www.ciol.com/ciol/news/217344/german-researchers-cut-energy-loss-half which will not only effect LED lights, but laptop and mobile phone chargers, cutting losses in today’s most efficient power supplies by half from 10% to just 5%.

Taking all this into consideration, according to the US Department of Energy SSL (Solid State Lighting) program http://energy.gov/eere/ssl/solid-state-lighting we should be able to achieve wall plug efficiencies of 250 Lumens per watt by 2020 which means that a conventional bulb replacement in 2020 would be available using only a third of the electricity of today’s LED bulbs.

3 Watts to light a room

At that staggering rate of 250 lumens per watt, it will only take 3W to light a room, when it used to be done with 60 Watts of power. This represents a 95% reduction in energy required for lighting.

This will have a profound effect on the world’s requirement for lighting energy.  We can expect  – on an absolute basis – that 19% of the world’s electricity which is currently used for lighting to dramatically drop by at least 75%.  On today’s numbers the reduction is the equivalent of the entire electricity consumption of the European Union.

In developed nations these huge efficiency gains from LEDs in the lighting sector will contribute to the continuing restructure of the electricity supply industry, which is currently facing a death spiral unless it can electrify the remaining residential energy services coming from fossil gas and supply a fast tracked electrification of the world’s vehicle fleet.

In developing countries, rooms that can be lit with 3W and task lights with even lower electricity consumption. This means that almost all the remaining 1.5Billion of the world’s population without an electricity supply will be able to access one at very minimal marginal cost in the next 5 years.

While energy requirements and costs for lighting go down, photovoltaic and battery efficiency’s are going up and their costs are coming down as well.  This nexus means that turnkey solar photovoltaic panels, with batteries and high performance lighting will be the mobile phone of the all-electric renewable revolution. leapfrogging the old fixed line poles and wires alternative creating ubiquitous world-wide electricity provision.

LED’s will be the starting point and other services such as mobile phone charging, laptops, basic machines (sewing) and cooking will flow from there.

In order to focus capital and research and development efforts  towards achieving the lowest cost and highest efficiency lighting, wealthy countries such as Australia should be specifically focussing research and development efforts.

This can be done through institutional and non-institutional research grants (equivalent to the US DoE and EU programs) and agencies such as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. To be effective it must make inroads into financing wholesale changeovers of the nation’s lighting infrastructure ato use the most efficient technology as an incentive for suppliers to retool, upscale and mass produce the newest and highest performance LEDs.

The future is looking bright for LEDs and the applications are unlimited, LED’s have had a strong impact on the auto sector, street lighting, appliance back lighting, bicycle lighting and are now even being used for greenhouses saving significant energy when growing food in controlled environments.

(Technical note: These are wall-plug efficiencies meaning the efficiency measurement is taken at the 240 Volt electrical socket, in the case of the LEDs if the measurement is taken at the correct DC voltage of the semiconductor then the lumens per watt rating is quite a bit higher. However wall-plug efficiencies are the most useful measure for consumers to compare with existing lighting and they are commonly quoted).

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Large Lighting Manufacturers Continue to Transition to LED, as Traditional Business Shrinks

Fabian Hoelzenbein

15 July 2015

The lighting market continued the move toward LED technology in 2014. LED lamp revenues in 2013 were 25% of total global lamp revenues, growing to 30% in 2014 and is forecast to reach 67% in 2022, according to Fabian Hoelzenbein, market analyst for Lighting & LEDs, IHS. A growing market for LED technology lighting means a shrinking market for halogen, compact fluorescent lamp and other traditional technologies, and larger lighting companies have struggled to adapt their businesses accordingly. At the same time, smaller and more specialized LED-only companies have entered the market, further increasing the pressure on the incumbent players.

Market leader Philips managed to increase its share in the LED lamp market, from 14% in 2013 to 17% in 2014. Runners-up Osram, Panasonic and Toshiba roughly maintained their market shares of 8%, 6% and 6%, respectively; GE increased from 3% in 2013 to 6% in 2014. Hefty losses in the traditional technology lamp market, however, meant that all top five lamp manufacturers lost market share overall.

The luminaire market is a lot more fragmented than the lamp market. Philips is the worldwide market leader, with 6% of the market, and the top 10 manufacturers combined comprising 22% of the market. Overall though, the luminaire market looks a bit brighter than the lamp market, at least for the top players. The top five companies—Philips, Acuity, Panasonic, Zumtobel and Cooper—all held on to their respective market shares in 2014; however, the pull of LED technology is also felt in the luminaire market.

LED luminaire revenue shares grew from 21% in 2013 to 23% in 2014, and this share is expected to reach 53% in 2022. The big winner here is Philips, whose LED luminaire market share increased from 4% in 2013 to 10% in 2014. Acuity Brands, which is focused on the American market, saw their share increase from 4% in 2013 to 6% last year. Acuity Brands holds 19% of the overall LED luminaire market (up from 16% in 2013). Philips is more concentrated on the European, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) market, with 12% of that market and Asia-Pacific (APAC), with 10% of that market.

It remains to be seen how leading lighting manufacturers will follow the market, as it moves toward LED. However, a strong focus on the luminaire market seems to help ease this transition, at least for the moment.

Article from: http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/5468/large-lighting-manufacturers-continue-to-transition-to-led-as-traditional-business-shrinks

Networked Lighting Controls To Reach $4.8 Billion in 2024

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

A new report from Navigant Research examines the global market for lighting controls, including forecasts for unit shipments and revenue, segmented by equipment type, building type, construction type, technology, and region, through 2024. 

Increasingly, regulations around the world are calling for the adoption of lighting controls and are encouraging more advanced control systems to minimize energy consumption. While all lighting control systems still function at their core to dim or shut off lights that are unnecessary, today’s systems also provide non-energy benefits that are potentially more valuable to building owners and managers, including improved monitoring and maintenance, enhanced occupant experience, and space utilization visualizations. Click to tweet: According to a new report from Navigant Research, global networked lighting controls revenue is expected to grow from $2.2 billion in 2015 to $4.8 billion in 2024. 

“In the midst of the ongoing transformation from previously dominant fluorescent lighting to more efficient and flexible LED lighting, the market for lighting controls has expanded broadly,” says Jesse Foote, senior research analyst with Navigant Research. “Innovations from small and large companies alike have led to a proliferation of creative ways to visualize lighting usage and devise new strategies to manage lighting energy consumption, as well as a host of non-energy benefits.” 

For many consumers, the falling marginal costs of including controls in lighting projects have also made the decision to incorporate these systems considerably easier, according to the report. In some cases, companies are even offering control systems by default to operate the lights that they install, thus bringing advanced controls to customers that might otherwise not have sought them out. 

The report, Intelligent Lighting Controls for Commercial Buildings, analyzes the worldwide market for lighting controls. The study examines sensors, relays, switches, ballasts, drivers, network control gear, network services, and communications technologies, with a specific focus on networked lighting controls. Global market forecasts for unit shipments and revenue, segmented by equipment type, building type, construction type, technology, and region, extend through 2024. The report details the market drivers for these technologies, including building codes, hardware costs, and consumer expectations, as well as barriers to adoption, and provides profiles of select industry players. An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the Navigant Research website. 

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Scientists Are Perfecting the LED Lighting For Our Future Space Gardens

Gardens may be an unruly mess on Earth, but in space, we’ll need our vegetable patches to run like well-oiled machines. That’s why researchers at Purdue University are working out the scientifically perfect cocktail of LED light to grow bumper crops in total confinement.

“Everything on Earth is ultimately driven by sunlight and photosynthesis,” said Cary Mitchell, a professor of horticulture at Purdue University in a statement. “The question is how we can replicate that in space. If you have to generate your own light with limited energy resources, targeted LED lighting is your best option.”

It’s long been known that light emitting diodes (LEDs) use far less electrical power per growing area than conventional high-pressure sodium lamps. But if we could figure out exactly what proportions of the visible spectrum plants are happiest guzzling down, we could in theory reduce our space garden power consumption even further. For lettuce, at least, the magic elixir seems to be a 95-to-5 ratio of red and blue LEDs placed close over the canopy. That’s according to a new scientific study led by Mitchell, which finds that this particular cocktail of light achieves the same growth yields using 50 percent less energy than full coverage LEDs, and a full 90 percent less power than traditional lights.

As the conversation about sending humans to live on Mars takes a more serious tone, so does the need to perfect techniques for growing plants off-Earth. If we’re ever to set up a self-sustaining colony on the Red Planet, or send astronauts further afield on a deep space mission, we’ll need space gardens, not only to feed our settlers, but to create self-contained ecosystems that recycle carbon dioxide, oxygen and water. NASA has recognized this need and identified ‘bioregenerative food systems’ as a research priority in a recent draft technology roadmap.

But life in space is going to be nothing like life on Earth. Out there, resources we take for granted, such as sunlight and air, will become incredibly precious and limited. One of the big challenges facing would-be space farmers, for instance, is the staggering energy cost of the 600- to 1,000-watt lamps traditionally used to mimic sunlight and stimulate plant growth in closed environments. Conventional lighting also creates excess heat, which can dehydrate or scorch plants if growers aren’t careful.

“Lighting was taking about 90 percent of the energy demand,” study co-author Lucie Poulet said. “You’d need a nuclear reactor to feed a crew of four people on a regular basis with plants grown under traditional electric lights.”

As weed growers and future space farmers alike are discovering, we can do a lot better with LEDs, which can be programmed to only emit the choicest parts of the visible spectrum. Plants throw away a large portion of the sun’s energy, preferring for evolutionary reasons to use red and blue light above all other colors. After some tinkering in the lab, the researchers discovered that feeding lettuce a red-heavy diet with a dash of blue led to the highest yields, while slashing energy consumption by a factor of ten.

There’s plenty more work to be done—Mitchell’s group, for instance, is now focusing on fine-tuning when to increase and decrease lighting throughout a plant’s life cycle. Once we get this process optimized for leafy greens, scientists will move on to more light-demanding plants, such as tomatoes and corn. Others are taking a broader perspective, prototyping bioregenerative systems in which plants recycle water, nutrients, and atmosphere.

It may be shrink-wrapped meals on the cosmic menu for now, but by the time you’re taking a Virgin Galactic cruise to Europa, ordering a fresh salad might not sound so crazy.

You can read the full scientific paper at Life in Space Sciences Research.

Article from: http://gizmodo.com/scientists-are-perfecting-the-led-lighting-for-our-futu-1715214635

Intelligent Lighting Controls Forecast to More Than Double in a Decade

by Doug Chandler in Electrical Marketing's LiveWire

The transition from fluorescent lighting to more efficient and flexible LED lighting is progressing rapidly in the commercial market and along with it the market for lighting controls has expanded. Both the variety of control systems that are available and the sheer number of systems that are being installed are growing quickly. Building energy codes largely drive the adoption of more basic lighting controls such as occupancy sensors and photosensors. Yet, those codes also create the opportunity for a lighting project to upgrade to a more comprehensive control system for a modest price increase. For these reasons, research firm Navigant in its latest study estimates that global networked lighting controls revenue will grow from $2.2 billion in 2015 to $4.8 billion in 2024.

With this growth, the market is seeing innovation in all directions, Navigant said in a release announcing the study.

To meet the growing demand for lighting control systems, different types of vendors have moved into the lighting controls market. Leading the innovative side of this move are pure-play startup companies, which are largely responsible for the proliferation of creative ways to visualize lighting usage and devise new strategies to manage lighting energy consumption. The large, traditional lighting companies have begun offering a range of lighting control products, as well. Finally, the established building controls companies have also been expanding their capabilities to include lighting controls along with other buildingwide control systems.

This Navigant Research report analyzes the worldwide market for lighting controls, covering sensors, relays, switches, ballasts, drivers, network control gear, network services, and communications technologies, with a specific focus on networked lighting controls. Global market forecasts for unit shipments and revenue, segmented by equipment type, building type, construction type, technology, and region, extend through 2024. The report details the market drivers for lighting controls technologies, including building codes, hardware costs, and consumer expectations, as well as barriers to adoption, and provides profiles of select industry players.

Here’s the Navigant release with info on how to obtain a copy of the study: Intelligent Lighting Controls for Commercial Buildings

Article from: http://electricalmarketing.com/blog/intelligent-lighting-controls-forecast-more-double-decade