LED bulbs: what should you know about them?
We all have been very familiar with LED bulbs, but have you ever thought about the reason behind its name? LEDs stand for light-emitting diodes. Let's discuss a bit more about how it works and what makes an LED light a white or a black one.
Lighting Technology: The technology of lighting involves several techniques to make use of the luminosity produced by certain power sources. There are many different types of emitters that can produce photons when excited to do so, such as incandescent lamps, fluorescent lamps, arc lamps, or High-Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps.
We usually see them every time we turn on our desk lamp at home or in an office building. The simplicity of these technologies has made them very common and used in almost all the world.
One of the key players in this field is without a doubt light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LEDs are semiconductor devices that emit light when electrically charged. They don't require any filament, gas, or chemical reaction to produce light, which makes them extremely more efficient compared with other traditional lighting technologies.
The term LED was first introduced by Nick Holonyak Jr., who is an American engineer at General Electric. It stands for "light-emitting diode". After coming up with the idea of using gallium arsenide phosphide to create a red LED, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in October of 2011 along with Japanese physicist Hiroshi Amano. Despite not receiving the prize personally due to his age, he will receive it posthumously and the award was accepted by his family.
LED lights colors
LEDs are usually made of semiconductor materials like gallium arsenide, indium gallium nitride, or silicon carbide. These types of materials allow an electron to transition between the filled valence band and the empty conduction band. As a side note, filled bands refer to their ability to accept electrons, whereas empty bands speak of their ability to donate them.
The different colors LEDs come in depend on the type of semiconductor material used. Different compounds emit different ranges of light wavelengths due to quantum confinement effects.
It is important for you like readers to know that quantum confinement effects determine how many electrons can be found within each atom volume. The size plays a big role in how much energy each electron can contain, which will determine the wavelength of light that it emits.
The typical colors LEDs come in are shown below:
- Red
- Green
- Blue
As a side note, many other colors exist including cyan, yellow, and white as well as cool and warm tints. An interesting fact is that combining different compounds together creates new colors apart from those mentioned above.
Therefore, this enables engineers to create more color blends or combinations for their needs. For example, they might mix red and green into an orange color or blue and red into a purple color depending on its application or design requirements.
Another factor to consider is that the size of the particles depends on what wavelength they emit. Therefore, smaller particles allow for shorter wavelengths.
How does it work with black?
Now we can jump back to answer our question: what makes a black LED light? The name comes from the fact that they emit any color of the visible spectrum when electrically charged, but all of them emit infrared (IR) radiation instead of visible light.
This is because they contain small particles called quantum dots, which are made out of semiconductor materials like gallium arsenide phosphide. Remember how these work: when excited, they produce photons! But wait, why don't we see any of this IR radiation if we see something emitting light during that time? That's because LEDs use lenses or mirrors to reflect all the light coming out of them, which makes us only see visible light.
So how do black LED lights work? Black LED lights are LEDs that don't use any color filter or lens over the quantum dots to make them emit only infrared radiation instead of visible light. These types of LEDs are great for night vision cameras because they don't emit anything in the visible spectrum, allowing the camera to record videos during complete darkness without any issues! However, since our eyes can't see this type of radiation, it is completely invisible to us when looking at its direction with our own eyes.
So what can they be used for? Infrared radiation has a longer wavelength than visible light, which makes it great for night vision glasses and goggles. They're also great for use in telescopes such as Radio Astronomy (which is cool!).
Now that we know the types of LEDs and how they work, we can now explain why black LED lights do not emit any visible light: because they contain quantum dots containing gallium arsenide phosphide and use lenses to emit only infrared radiation waves.
How can you make blacklight with..?
LED strips
Most LED strips are made of many LEDs connected together. These can be cut into separate lengths for your application, but before cutting them, make sure to use a resistor with the strip because they do not have one built-in by default! If you don't, all of the current will flow through one LED until it burns out. A typical blacklight LED strip needs about 40mA per meter.
Using a stable power source you will install it just like you would any other LED strip. It needs to be connected the correct way or else it won't light up at all! Using the DIY color setting button, you can control and set the color and brightness of the LED strip according to your needs!
Transparent tape and white LED light
This is another method for creating a blacklight. All you need is an LED strip and some transparent tape!
You will start by taping the LED strip to your desired location. Take purple and blue markers, cut quite small pieces of transparent tape and place them over the LEDs. Make sure to make your markers as close to the middle of the strip as possible (where you can't see it) so that only IR radiation is emitted and not visible light!
You will then need to pair this with a power supply capable of supplying constant current, which means it cannot be battery powered. When selecting your power source, take into consideration how much voltage (V) and current (A) you want, which are both important for working out total wattage (W). Make sure that the power supply can provide enough watts for what you're using it on. Don`t forget to color them with blue and purple markers!
By using several LEDs in series with different colors along with white transparent tape, we can make any color in the rainbow including black! The reason why this works is that all of these colors emit invisible IR radiation waves instead of visible light, which makes them perfect for night vision cameras! This also means if you are wearing night-vision goggles, you will be able to see the light from this method!
This method is a great way for creating an invisible blacklight. The reason why it won't emit any visible light (or ultraviolet) is that each LED used emits only infrared radiation waves (instead of all colors like white), which means they are perfect for night vision cameras and goggles!
How to set up a blacklight?
Connect your power source to the LED strip Connect your power source's positive wire to the anode (+) of each LED in your light strip. Connect your power source's negative wire to the cathode (-), which should be shorter or look different than other LEDs on the strip. Your blacklight should now work without any problems! For assembly, you can either connect all of this stuff together with tape, solder them onto a circuit board, or simply let everything float freely near each other to keep it simple.
This is because LEDs are diodes, meaning electricity can only flow through it one way. If your connections are backward, the light won't turn on at all! Now that we know what black LED lights are and how they are made, let's go over some safety tips to remember when using them!
Safety precautions
Blacklight can be dangerous for your eyes. Some black LED lights have special coatings that block visible light so they appear dark to the naked eye - but if you look at it through night vision goggles, it will be extremely bright due to the high amounts of infrared waves being emitted from it! So if you're looking directly at a blacklight with night vision goggles on, you could potentially damage your retinas and burn out your night vision.
Don't install anything exposed or near any flammable objects such as paper, cardboard, batteries, etc. Blacklights produce ultraviolet radiation which can also harm organic life just like UV does. If you're using this device indoors, make sure to never have any flammable objects nearby because the blacklight itself can easily catch on fire.
Never look directly at a blacklight with night vision goggles as it will damage your eyes! If you want to do this experiment safely, place a piece of paper in front of the blacklight instead and check how bright it is through the paper using night vision goggles. The less light that goes through, the brighter it appears!
Please remember that black lights aren't meant for human viewing purposes, they are mainly used by people who work with minerals and other organisms from extreme environments such as geologists, biologists, etc. For example: if someone wanted to check an old document for DNA evidence or even detect counterfeit money - all of these things are done with blacklights because they can reveal certain compounds which you can't see otherwise! Even forensic scientists use this method to help them solve crimes involving DNA collection etc.
Why does LED blacklight look like purple?
The reason why LED blacklights look like purple is that infrared waves are invisible to the naked eye, which means when you combine multiple colors of light together (red + green = purple), it will appear dark to human eyes. If you shine white light onto this device, each color appears in its natural way.
Manufacturers don`t usually make black LED light in order to make it invisible to the naked eye, because each LED emits a different wavelength of light due to its chemistry.
Every atom on this planet has a unique atomic number and electric charge. When an atom receives a certain amount of energy, it ejects electrons from its orbit and becomes ionized - creating a completely new substance with completely different chemical properties.
This is where blacklight comes from - when you combine specific atoms together that emit photons at specific wavelengths! In order to make LEDs into blacklight devices, manufacturers use phosphors as coatings around the diode itself. The phosphor absorbs all other colors besides the one it produces (red + green = purple) which makes this type of light extremely bright for night vision goggles etc
Black LED vs White LED
LEDs are made from special crystals called semiconductors. To keep it simple, they are electrical components that either let electricity flow through them or not. It depends on how you're "pushing" the electric current through these components which decide whether they will allow electricity to flow through according to its particular wiring diagram.
So if you have a black LED light with just heating wires coming into contact with both ends of phosphor coating - it means no electric current can pass through this device because there is no circuitry whatsoever! This results in the color not glowing at all and looking like an object absorbing all visible light (which is true).
If you do wire up this device properly (anode + cathode), then this device will give off extremely bright purple light which will appear black in the night by blocking out all other colors of visible light. On the contrary, if you have a white LED device with a full wiring diagram attached to its circuit board - it will emit white light because every wavelength is being emitted at once!