It was in the 1960s that the red LED lamps became available in the markets and by the onset of the 1970s, devices making use of the LED technology became extremely popular, heralding in a new era of lighting technologies and products.

The original LED devices had a meager output which was not very useful as the power of the devices was not enough to meet the needs of a household. However, LED lamps continued to become more and more popular and fast replaced the neon lamps and lamps which ran on power supplied by indicator-like filaments.

In comparison to neon lamps, LED lamps have a longer life period and also make use of lesser amounts of voltage. Following the red LEDs, the commercial amber/yellow LED lamps as well as the orange colored LEDs were introduced. With the growing needs for differentiation, a variety of colors were introduced, such as blue and cyan and green.

It was in the 1990s that the violet colored LED lamps were finally released in the markets. Let us take a look at the technology behind the LED lamps. It is a fact that a solitary LED diode is capable of producing only a certain amount of light and also only one color of light at a particular point of time.

The mixing of colors in order to produce multiple hues is done by using more than one LED diodes in a lamp in order to be able to produce the entire spectrum of white light which contains all the colors.

The applications of LED lamps are many. They can be used in houses for the purpose of domestic lighting, in flood lights for large areas and building, as a part of the flashlights and electric torches. LEDs can also be used for stage lighting, lighting for bicycles, illuminating billboard advertisements and also in traffic lights. A popular use of LED lamps is in art galleries where they are employed to throw soft light upon the art displays and to create an effect of low heating on the pictures. There are several advantages of using LED lamps in place of conventional forms of lighting and these include high levels of efficiency and effectiveness, an increased life span, long term durability and endurance characteristics and not to forget, the small size of the diodes which allows for flexibility and change in the designing process. The challenge faced by companies in the manufacture of LED lamps is one of cost. The technology for producing white LED diodes has not been advanced significantly enough to be able to manufacture these lights on a large scale at an economically viable cost. There are also several hindrances in the process of production itself and these glitches hamper the desired large scale production and widespread distribution as envisioned by the companies.

LED lamps are the new generation lamps which have LED’s or Light emitting Diodes as their light source instead of any gas or electrical filaments.  These Lamps make use of the concept of Solid state Lightning, and hence fall into one of the categories of Solid State lightning Lamps.

LED Lamps are also called as Bars or Illuminators.  LED lamps are generally a number of Light emitting diodes,  packed together to perform the function of emission of light.

LED lamps come in various shapes,  designs and sizes.

Some examples of the common LED Lamps are:

1)Small Edison lamp

2) Bayonet bulbs ,  etc.

Most of the LED lamps require low voltage, and work appropriately in the normal household supply of electricity. (120-240 V AC )

LED lamps,  as compared to Neon lamps,  are a better source of Illumination.  They last longer than the Neon lamps and require lesser voltage to run on.

Earlier,  many different types of LED’s were in use.  For example,  infra-red,  yellow,  green,  red and orange LED’s were greatly in use till the 1990′s,  when Blue, indigo and violet LED’s replaced them.

A single LED,  individually is of no use. It can not provide ample light to be used as an illuminator, nor can it be used to produce even the Visible spectra of light. Hence a large number of LED’s are required to make an LED lamp.  Also,  sometimes,  LED’s are used along with metals such as Yellow phosphor,  etc.  to produce the desired lights of suitable wavelength.

Two or more different colored LED’s can be combined in a lamp to produce white light.

LED’s have very low internal resistance of their own.  They mostly act as negative resistances to the source,  and hence withdraw a large amount of current from the source.  This either leads to the destruction of the LED or the destruction of the source.  Hence ballasts,  or positive resistances are required in series in the circuits containing LED’s or LED lamps in order to prevent them from destroying themselves and maintain a smooth functioning.

LED Lights and lamps are better than the traditional incandescent lamps because of a lot of reasons:

1)    In Incandescent lights, 98% of the electric energy supplied is wasted in the form of Heat.
Whereas in LED lamps,  most of the electric energy is used to produce Light.  Hence LED lamps help to save electricity and energy.

2)    LED’s come in various colors other than the traditional white and yellow colors.

3)    They provide a very high and bright intensity of light,  100 Lumen per watt approximately which is better than most of the lighting systems.

4)    They are very durable as compared to incandescent lights,  as they do not have any tubes or filaments which can get broken.

5)    Average life span of a LED light is about 7000 hours,  which is 7 times the life of an incandescent bulb.

6)    LED’s lamps are fully dimmable. Unlike fluorescent lights,  LED support dimming fully and can be connected to a dimming device easily.

7)    LED lamps do not have Mercury,  like most fluorescent lamps and other HID bulbs.  Hence the chances of pollution through mercury are also reduced.
Hence,  these days,  LED lights and Lamps are the best to use.  LED lighting technology is currently the best available in the market today.