News

30 March 2009

 

DOE selects projects for Round 5 SSL Core Technology and Product Development funding

In response to last May’s Round 5 ‘Core Technology’ and ‘Product Development’ funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) for its solid-state lighting (SSL) program, the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory has selected 14 projects for funding.

The selections are expected to contribute to the SSL program’s goal of (by 2025) developing solid-state lighting technologies that, compared with conventional lighting technologies, are much more energy efficient, longer lasting, and cost competitive by targeting a product system efficiency of 50% with lighting that accurately reproduces the sunlight spectrum.

Seven selections are in response to the Product Development FOA ‘DE-PS26-08NT00291’. The projects are focused on the development or improvement of commercially viable materials, devices, or systems. Technical activities are focused on a targeted market application with fully defined price, efficacy, and other performance parameters necessary for success of the proposed product. Total funding is $15.6m; the performers will provide an average of 27% as cost-share.

The Product Development selections include an award to LED firm Cree Inc of Durham, NC, USA for the project ‘SSL Luminaire with Novel Driver Architecture’, which seeks to develop an 81lm/W SSL luminaire that emits at a color temperature of 2700K with a color rendering index (CRI) of more than 90. The project will involve an integrated development effort tailoring the LED chip characteristics to enable a high-efficiency driver, establishing a technology platform capable of providing high-efficiency components, drivers and luminaires.

Seven of the selections are in response to the Core Technology FOA ‘DE-PS26-08NT00290’. The projects are expected to fill key technology gaps, provide enabling knowledge or data, and represent a significant advancement in the SSL technology base. Total funding is $10.4m; the performers of cooperative agreements will provide an average of 24% as cost-share.

The Core Technology selections include the following awards:

• Kaai Inc for the project ‘High Efficiency m-Plane LEDs on Low Defect Density Bulk GaN Substrates’, which seeks to develop LEDs on the GaN crystal’s nonpolar m-plane orientation, emitting at wavelengths of 400-460nm. Target results will be high-performance, temperature- and wavelength-stable nonpolar LEDs with peak internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of more than 90% that exhibit minimal IQE roll-over at high current densities (>350mA/mm2).

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (with wafer-making team member Kyma Technologies of Raleigh, NC) for the project ‘High Efficacy Green LEDs by Polarization Controlled Metalorganic Vapor Phase Epitaxy’, which seeks to address the issue of the poor IQE of deep-green emitters through new approaches of polarization control, including growth along nonpolar directions of the material, the avoidance of crystalline defects, and new approaches for the quantitative assessment of IQE, to enhance the efficiency at which light is generated within the LED.

• Eastman Kodak Company for the project ‘High Efficiency Colloidal Quantum Dot Phosphors’, which seeks to create white LEDs composed of blue LEDs and colloidal red, green, and blue quantum dot phosphors with dense film quantum efficiencies of more than 90%, optical scattering losses of less than 5%, and very good color stability up to 150ºC.

Search: Cree Kyma SSL LEDs

Visit: www1.eere.energy.gov