News: Optoelectronics
5 September 2022
Lumileds says LUXEON HL1Z outperforms seemingly brighter competitors in application
LED maker Lumileds LLC of San Jose, CA, USA says that data sheets have long been the go-to source for LED specifications and are broadly used to narrow options and ultimately select an LED for a particular application. But, too often, factors not accounted for in the data sheet significantly affect the LED’s performance in the application, and, in some cases, relying on data-sheet specifications alone will lead to the wrong conclusion.
As an example, Lumileds cites that its newest high-power LED (LUXEON HL1Z) was evaluated against a competitor’s offering for a recent customer developing a 25° spot application. When mounted on a board, the competitor’s LED appeared to be the best choice in terms of output and intensity. However, when implemented in the application, the LUXEON HL1Z outperformed in lumens by more than 20% and more than 40% in terms of candela (intensity) – see Table.
Lumileds says that the result highlights the importance of understanding the end objective and the factors that may influence the outcome. The LUXEON HL1Z is very small, allowing tight alignment of the LEDs and hence creating a smaller light-emitting area. This, coupled with collection efficiency and collimating efficiency of the fixture, produce a result where the LUXEON HL1Z does deliver the best performance even though, at a data-sheet level, performance appears lower.
Though only launched in May, Lumileds has released additional options with varying correlated color temperatures and color-rendering indexes (CCT/CRI), growing the LUXEON HL1Z portfolio to 15 options. At just 1.4mm per side and only 0.36mm high, the emitter is very small, and at 4000K/80CRI and 350mA offers 133lm and 136lm/W with excellent color-over-angle performance, says the firm.
