Icy White: All About The Brightest Led Light

At Christmas time, their look is unmistakable. Their icy luminescence stands out from the crowd of reds and greens and blues. Put next to typical white Christmas lights, the LED version of the color looks surreally bright in comparison.

LED lights have been in commercial use for 40 years, revolutionizing how the world meets its lighting needs. But did you know that the last color of LED to be developed was the white one? The technology to create blue and white was limited for 30 years after the original red found success and started becoming commonplace. Indeed, the colored versions have been used in homes for decades: in our televisions, watches, phones, answering machines, and clocks.

It was Shuji Nakamura, a Japanese researcher, who, after years of trial and error, was able to produce the first blue LED in 1993. This remarkable scientist finally figured out how to make the wavelength, or light, short enough to make a different and brighter shine than the traditional red, amber and green. When Nakamura applied a phosphorescent coating to his blue LED, the coating's molecules were excited by the light and the result was the creation of a very bright, white color!

Although their brightness is superior to traditional incandescent bulbs, one white LED cannot be produced effectively for that size of use. People who want to use them for home lighting must purchase a special fixture which use large clusters of the small bulbs. Because of this characteristic, the white color is more often used by the general public for flashlights, Christmas decorations, and any other specialized tasks.

Another characteristic of the white is that the light produced is focused and directional, which also makes it impractical for lighting a large area. Like other LED colors, however, this particular feature makes it a great option for specific jobs where, for example, light needs to be seen in bright sunlight. It is concentrated, ultra bright and intense, but not yet as multi-purpose as the incandescent variety.

LED lights in general are unique because they give off very little heat and use very little power. However, the blue and white varieties are harder to produce and are therefore not, as cost effective as their older counterparts. But the white variety in particular has its place in our homes and businesses: it produces a startling bright brand of illumination. It is making headway in industrial settings as well, in specialized roles which require an icy whiteness and brightness unheard of before Shuji Nakamura's great discovery.

Its future potential is bright indeed, as scientists and researchers experiment with and perfect ways to make the startlingly white LEDs even more practical and cost-efficient.