Researchers Conquer "LED Droop" 113
sciencehabit writes "Tiny and efficient, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are supposed to be the bright future of illumination. But they perform best at only low power, enough for a flashlight or the screen of your cellphone. If you increase the current enough for them to light a room like an old-fashioned incandescent bulb, their vaunted efficiency nosedives. It's called LED droop, and it's a real drag on the industry. Now, researchers have found a way to build more efficient LEDs that get more kick from the same amount of current—especially in the hard-to-manufacture green and blue parts of the spectrum."
Re:Dumb question (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, and lots of applications do that already. There are drawbacks though: cost and space, for one thing, not to mention the different optical properties (focusing one light source versus focusing many).
If your sole goal is to just pump out a ton of light regardless of the cost or space, that's not a problem. But if you care about cost, or need to focus the light in a specific manner, it's a problem.
I suspect this is one of the reasons why LED-based projectors are still incredibly dim.
Re:Ahhh that explainsPhilips' LED bulb (Score:4, Insightful)
That's daft. With LEDs if you want more light, you simply use more LEDs. They are not bulbs, they're bloody diodes! Overdriving LEDs results in earth deaths, this has been known for 40+ years, keeping them within tolerances will ensure they'll last forever, or as near it in human terms.