Our products are based on newly developed technologies to bring you the very latest in traffic and safety lighting. Not just the cutting-edge in solid-state LED technology – every component has been engineered to deliver the maximum in energy savings, reliability, and sustainability.
This page provides a brief introduction to some of these technologies. In the near future we will be posting technical papers, spec sheets, news links, articles, and more. To be notified of updates to this page, please click here and fill out the brief form.
Click the headings below to be taken directly to that section.
LED stands for Light Emitting Diode and is a type of semiconductor diode. Though first invented in the 1920s, the LED was not introduced into the U.S. as a practical electronic component until 1962. The first LEDs only emitted low-intensity red light, and were useful mostly as indicator lights. The first blue LED was made in 1971, but it was not until the late 1990s that a true high-brightness white LED was achieved. Today LEDs are available across the spectrum of visible, ultraviolet and infra-red light, and with very high brightness.
Diodes, in essence, are uni-directional: the LED only allows current (electricity) to flow in one direction, and not the other, but with the unique side effect of producing light while electricity is flowing through them. Unlike ordinary light bulbs, LEDs don’t have a filament to break or burn out. They operate on very low voltage and generate very little heat. And unlike CFCs (compact fluorescents), they are virtually unbreakable and don’t contain mercury or other dangerous chemicals.
In the simplest terms, an LED contains two terminals, the anode and the cathode, one having too many free electrons and the other not having enough. When an electron from one side gets pushed across a thin barrier into tiny spaces in the other (called the “holes”), a photon, or particle of light, is produced. This phenomenon is referred to as “electroluminescence.” The barrier is called the “band gap,” and the width of the band gap determines the wavelength, and therefore the color, of the light emitted.
LEDs offer numerous advantages over traditional lighting technologies, including:
Solar Cells (Solar Photovoltaics)
Solar cells convert sunlight directly into electricity. Solar cells are made of semi-conducting materials similar to those used in computer chips. When sunlight is absorbed by these materials, the solar energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, allowing the electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity. This process of converting light (photons) to electricity (voltage) is called the photovoltaic effect. A component designed to produce electricity by this effect is called a photovoltaic (or “pv”) cell, while a pv cell made specifically to absorb sunlight is called a solar cell.
The performance of a pv cell is measured in terms of its efficiency at turning sunlight into electricity. The earliest solar cells operated at barely 1% efficiency, but today’s technology has moved forward by leaps and bounds, exceeding 20% in the late 1990s and approaching 30% in the late 2000s.
The solar cells on LED Enlightenment’s solar road markers provide a full charge to the unit with only three hours of sunlight or eight hours of cloudy or rainy conditions. To learn more about our solar road marker products, please visit our Products page.
based on physical principals that were first demonstrated in 1745. An ultracapacitor, also known as an Electric Double-Layer Capacitor or EDLC, has an extremely high energy density that is many thousands of times greater than a normal capacitor.
EDLCs were first developed in 1957, but the technology didn’t reach the point of affordable manufacture and practical use until very recently. Ultracapacitor technology continues to advance to this day, and they are more often used in mobile devices such as MP3 players, flashlights and cell phones for their “energy smoothing” properties than as actual battery replacements. However, as the energy density of EDLCs continues to approach that of chemical batteries, it is hoped that ultracapacitors can replace batteries not only in mobile devices but also in automobiles and numerous other applications. In fact, ultracapacitors are often used today in the regenerative braking systems in hybrid automobiles and other vehicles due to their fast charging capabilities.
Ultracapacitors take the place of batteries in all of our solar LED road marker products. Let’s reiterate: there are NO batteries in any of our products! The ultracapacitor is far better suited than batteries for use in solar lighting products, for several important reasons:
More information about these cutting-edge technologies is coming soon!
In the meantime, click here to visit our products page and learn more about how these technologies are put to use in our LED Enlightment products.
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