Light for the Future

Guest Editor Nicolas Grandjean

The holy grail of converting electrons into photons with 100% efficiency is becoming closer to reality with the advent of solid state lighting. The revolution in solid-state lighting started in 1994 when Nakamura reported the first high-brightness blue light emitting diode (LED) based on GaN semiconductors. After more than a decade of intensive research the performance of white LEDs is quite impressive, beating by far the luminous efficacy of compact fluorescent lamps.

This cluster of review and research articles highlights some of the progress and challenges in developing solid state lighting as a viable technology.