LED light bulbs are already more efficient than your average bulb, but researchers at the Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new kind of LED that exhibits both improved energy efficiency and lighting performance. The researchers‘ polarization-matching LED shows an 18 percent increase in light output and a 22 percent increase in wall plug efficiency (the amount of electricity that the LED converts into light).
Renssalaer’s LED is more powerful thanks to a reduction in “efficiency droop”, which makes LEDs most efficient when receiving low-density electrical currents and least efficient when higher density electrical currents are received.
The research team figured out that the region of the LED where light is generated contains materials with mismatched polarization. By reducing the polarization mismatch, electron leakage can also be reduced, thus increasing energy efficiency. So Renssalaer’s researchers introduced a new design with better matched polarization. As expected, they saw a reduction in efficiency droop and electron leakage.
Since LED lights are not yet entirely mainstream, advances made now can easily be implemented in both current and future LED installations.