A new design for LED technology could create efficient, flexible, and long-lasting lighting that works in curved applications, according to new research. The team from National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan has developed an off-the-shelf LED device that holds its power output when bent to a curvature with a 1.5-cm radius while putting out a light efficiency of 120 lumens per watt.
Additionally, the researchers’ LED maintains its performance over an industry-standard 1,000 hour test, losing only 5% of its efficiency over the time period.
The researchers’ original design, detailed in Optics Express, only used an LED film that was 5 centimeters by 5 centimeters. The fact that the technology is assembled using readily-available components means that others can easily replicate and scale the design to larger sizes if necessary.
“Compared to organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), this design of flexible LEDs can be very attractive due to the low cost, prolonged lifetime and high efficiency,” says Chien-Chung Lin, Associate Professor, College of Photonics at National Chiao Tun University.
