Luxim's tiny plasma lightbulb outshines LEDs

March 20, 2008 by Lisa Zyga weblog
Luxim  lightbulb

A Tic-Tac-sized lightbulb that gives off as much light as a streetlamp may offer a peek at the ultra-efficient lighting of the future. The bulb, developed by Luxim of Sunnyvale, California, uses plasma technology to achieve its brightness.

The tiny bulb contains an argon gas in the middle, as well as a component called a "puck." The bulb is partially embedded in a dielectric material. When electrical energy is delivered to the puck, the puck acts like an electrical lens. It heats up the argon to a temperature of 6000 degrees Kelvin, and turns the gas into a plasma that gives off light.

The plasma, whose 6000-degree temperature is similar to that of the surface of the sun, also emits a spectrum that looks very similar to the spectrum of sunlight.

The plasma bulb uses 250 watts, and achieves around 140 lumens per watt, making it very bright and highly efficient. By comparison, conventional lightbulbs and high-end LEDs get around 15 and 70 lumens per watt, respectively.

"A key advantage is that the energy is driven into the bulb without any electrodes, so you don't need any electrical connections to get the energy into the bulb," Luxim CEO Tony McGettigan explained to ZDNet.

Luxim is using different versions of its electrode-less plasma technology to develop lighting for ultra-bright projection displays, retail and street lighting, microscope lighting, and various medical applications.

More information: Luxim.com

via: ZDNet

4.6 /5 (69 votes)  

Filter


Move the slider to adjust rank threshold, so that you can hide some of the comments.


Display comments: newest first

superhuman
Mar 20, 2008

Rank: 4.5 / 5 (2)
"A key advantage is that the energy is driven into the bulb without any electrodes, so you don't need any electrical connections to get the energy into the bulb,"

Seriously, connections are the least of the problems, efficiency is what matters.
dirk_bruere
Mar 20, 2008

Rank: 3.5 / 5 (2)
"When electrical energy is delivered to the puck" - How?
..."the puck acts like an electrical lens" - What???
Doesn't sound too reliable. I doubt anything that uses a 6000K plasma is going to last long. Certainly not as long as a LED (IIRC record is around 140lm/W)
Soylent
Mar 20, 2008

Rank: 4 / 5 (2)
They claim more than 80% of original output after 25 000 hours. The drive electronics is probably the limiting factor as far as lifetime is concerned, not the gas filled bulb.
MasterXF
Mar 21, 2008

Rank: 4 / 5 (2)
Hmm... Nikola Tesla invented the electrode-less lamp in the 1890's (a man way ahead of his time).
http://en.wikiped...ess_lamp

For those wonder how this is done and why.
Doug_Huffman
Mar 21, 2008

Rank: 1 / 5 (2)
It doesn't really matter, CFLs are mandated by law. In our free market economy.
earls
Mar 21, 2008

Rank: 4 / 5 (2)
Until people start dropping from mercury poisoning.

Just one of the more recent articles I've come across: http://www.msnbc....3694819/

"Brilliant!"
Agisman
Mar 21, 2008

Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
In this case, the "electric lens" is just a dielectric waveguide. Nothing really unusual, in theory. The temperature of the plasma isn't really that absurd either. Plasma temperatures of a few million degrees can be achieved in the laboratory. The technical information on the website doesn't help much, but 6000k is a pretty white light. As long as the plasma is confined to the center of the bulb using the guided E field, then the outside of the bulb shouldn't heat up significantly. It seems likely that the dielectric also would serve to get any heat generated out.

Now, I'm just speculating but this looks similar to the older sulfur plasma lamps. They had problems with destroying the lamp because of the high temperature. While confining the plasma with varying E-fields, the heat transfer should be minimal. If we are to believe that the bulb is evacuated then backfilled with a small argon charge, then the thermal transfer goes with the Stefan Boltzmann law which is radiative and not conductive. That alone would help reduce the bulb temperatures.

This is a fantastic device and I would love to demo one! (Until those 300lm/W white LED's can produce this much light)
DGBEACH
Mar 21, 2008

Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
The plasma bulb uses 250 watts, and achieves around 140 lumens per watt, making it very bright and highly efficient.


Thats 35000 Lumens boys and girls...I'd say they're onto something useful, if they can surpass the lifespan of LEDs that is!
OldICFart
Mar 25, 2008

Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
If it works, sounds great. I wonder about getting rid of the unused part of the 250 W in a tic-tac-size item.
Incidentally, the proposed laws I have heard about merely mandate more efficient lamps, not CFLs specifically. I am eager for better environmental solutions than the CFLs I have all around my house right now.
Bonkers
Jul 16, 2008

Rank: not rated yet
come on guys, 5mg of mercury is not much, we should address the problem through recycling, rather than simply ban everything we don't want to see in landfill. in the UK it is mandatory to recycle these, though enforcement is difficult. Seriously, we should only need to consider accidental breakage and release, and be confident that all the raw materials are recaptured. CCFLs are tons better than incandescents, and are OK for now.
ledlover
Aug 20, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
im by no means an expert nor will i pretend to be, but after watching the demo video for this bulb, i had a thought and it keeps bugging me. could this technology be applied to leds. i've seen flouro tubes glow in front of a radio tarnsmitter, and was wondering if these means of gas excitation could be used could be used/applied to the semi conductor junction as in leds.
this could have massive benefits as the limiting factor with the newest surface mount leds is the junction temp at the board. i cant help but think that this would be even more efficient, plus when leds have such narrow out put frequencies this could lead to very high power laser diodes.
Rank 4.6 /5 (69 votes)
Tags

Related Stories
Relevant PhysicsForums posts
  • Calling function with no input argument
    created2 hours ago
  • Force free body diagram problem on gym equipment
    created3 hours ago
  • Empirical data regarding shower heads and water
    created11 hours ago
  • feed hold button on CNC lathe
    createdFeb 09, 2012
  • RFAC in Fortran
    createdFeb 09, 2012
  • dynamics 2/32
    createdFeb 08, 2012
  • More from Physics Forums - General Engineering

More news stories

Zuckerberg's focus drives Facebook's ascent

When Mark Zuckerberg showed up to rent Judy Fusco's Los Altos, Calif., house in the fall of 2004, soon after he'd arrived in Silicon Valley, the landlord was immediately struck by his confidence.

Technology / Internet

created 1 hour ago | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Review: Netflix and Hulu's new scripted originals

Within just over a week, Netflix and Hulu are both debuting their first stabs at original scripted programming.

Technology / Business

created 1 minute ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Tailor-made search tools for the Web

For companies, customer feedback is a matter of strategic importance. Smart apps for the semantic analysis of user opinions from the Web help businesses keep an eye on feedback. Users benefit as well: with ...

Technology / Software

created 16 minutes ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission

Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. They’re a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel — such as an optical fiber o ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created 5 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Netflix light on flicks as viewers soak up TV shows

Like most fresh faces that arrive in Hollywood, Netflix wanted to be a movie star. But now it's learning what many in Tinseltown have known for decades: Movies are sexy, but the real money is in television.

Technology / Business

created 2 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 1


New understanding of DNA repair could eventually lead to cancer therapy

A research group in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta is hoping its latest discovery could one day be used to develop new therapies that target certain types of cancers.

Hovering not hard if you're top-heavy, researchers find

Top-heavy structures are more likely to maintain their balance while hovering in the air than are those that bear a lower center of gravity, researchers at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences ...

Grass to gas: Researchers' genome map speeds biofuel development

Researchers at the University of Georgia have taken a major step in the ongoing effort to find sources of cleaner, renewable energy by mapping the genomes of two originator cells of Miscanthus x giganteus, a large perenn ...

Both maternal and paternal age linked to autism

Older maternal and paternal age are jointly associated with having a child with autism, according to a recently published study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

Night, weekend delivery OK for babies with birth defects

Weekday delivery is no better than night or weekend delivery for infants with birth defects, according to a new study presented today at The Pregnancy Meeting, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual conference. ...

Sonic Cradle lands spot in TED exhibition

A Simon Fraser University graduate student project that melds music, meditation and modern technology has landed a rare spot as an exhibit at TEDActive 2012 in Palm Springs, California this month.