LED bulbs represent the most recent and fascinating technological advance in the lighting industry. They are characterized by being small but powerful, energetically efficient and durable. In fact, these types of bulbs provide considerable advantages over other types of lighting .
And, being much more efficient, they need much less electricity to work. In addition, they do not emit unwanted heat, as do traditional incandescent bulbs. And the best ones tend to last longer, compared to fluorescent bulbs.
But these types of bulbs, although they offer many advantages, are not without problems. And one of those that most worries experts is overexposure to blue light produced by standard LED bulbs, as it is believed that it may have a direct link between certain health problems, such as insomnia, mood disorders and fatigue. .
But there are also other disadvantages that can cause buyers to opt for other cheaper options: the precise, sometimes high, that they can have.
Recently, a team of researchers at the University of Houston, led by associate professor of chemistry in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and principal investigator at the Texas Center for Superconductivity, Jakoah Brgoch, are working on the development of an LED light bulb. capable of emitting most of its energy from the safest violet segment of the visible light spectrum .
Thus, instead of masking the blue light, they would be developing a unique class of luminescent materials, known as phosphors, capable of absorbing the emission of a single color from a violet LED, and converting the light to cover most of the visible spectrum.
According to the experts, the research group “is creating phosphors that work, not with the conventional blue LED chip that almost all LED bulbs use today, but with a violet LED chip .” This would help move away from blue light to violet as the base source, then converting the violet light into broad spectrum white light.
The ultimate goal is to make the new violet-based bulb as energy efficient as possible, as well as economical, which would help develop a new lighting technology interesting to most consumers.
The research results have recently been published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces .
As the experts explain, if we have a standard LED bulb at home, we may think that the light it provides is white. But the reality is that, from a technical point of view, there really is no such thing as pure white light. What’s more, just hold a prism to that bulb and we will observe the light separated into wavelengths that show a wide variety of color bands, ranging from purple to red. This is what scientists call the visible light spectrum .
And why do we see the light of a lamp with a white LED bulb? Mainly because our eyes and brain work together to combine human perception of those separate color bands into white light. In this sense, different types of light bulbs emphasize different parts of the visible spectrum of light.
In order to generate a specific environment, engineers manipulate this balance. For example, a little more cool blue emits a much sharper white light (ideal for office lighting), while a little more red tends to produce a warm white light. Precisely, the trend of LED bulbs to blue has been difficult to avoid outside the laboratory.
And it is that different previously published sleep studies have revealed that nocturnal overexposure to blue frequencies can alter certain hormones, such as melatonin , which would explain why insomnia, alterations in sleep cycles or other related problems. What’s more, experts suspect that excessive exposure to blue light could influence cataract formation .
