A LED, which is also referred to as light emitting diodes are types of light sources made from 2 lead semiconductors. Whenever this gets activated it will emit light based on the p-n junction diode. This means that when there is a nice electrical current applied to these conductors, electrons will turn themselves into photons and enter into electron holes which are located inside of the light. This particular type of effect is referred to as electroluminescence. Whenever the light color is able to correspond to photon energy which are determined by specific gaps in the energy within semiconductors. They are quite tiny and only around 1 mm². These are integrated using optical parts which are able to be utilized in order to create a type of pattern for radiation.

Starting in 1962, they seemed to be a practical electronic part and they originally emitted a low intensity infrared light. These are still use quite often as a transmitting element within remote controls and they are often placed within a bunch of electronics as well. The first type of visible light versions had been limited to the color red and had low intensity. The more modern types come in ultraviolet, infrared, and visible wavelengths and they are quite bright.

The earliest versions were often used as being an indicator light for electronic things, which replaced the small incandescent bulbs. They then began to be packaged into many readouts using a 7-segment display and were used in digital clocks. Because of the most recent developments have produced many that are very suitable for task lighting and the environment lighting, they have lead to new sensors and displays while they have high switching rates they are still useful in advanced communication electronics.

There are many advantages for these over incandescent lights which include longer life, smaller size, faster switching, improve physical strength, and lower energy usage. These are used in a lot of different things such as headlights on cars, traffic lights, medical devices, lighted wallpaper, camera bulbs, general lighting, advertising, and aviation lights. They have become quite energy efficient as well as there being less concerns for the environment connected to these lights.

However, they are not like lasers, the light colors that come from these will not be monochromatic or coherent, but there is a narrow spectrum that has a respect for the vision of humans and many of these purposes for the light may be seen as being monochromatic in a functional way.

Electroluminescence was found in 1907 as just a phenomenon which was found by HJ Round from Marconi Labs while using a cat’s whisker detector and a crystal of silicon carbide. Then in 1927 the first LED would be created by Oleg Losev, who was a Russian inventor. It was his research that would be put in British, Soviet and German scientific journals but there were no practical uses made for this for quite a few years.

Georges Destriau had observed electroluminescence during 1936 and stated that it could be made whenever you suspended zinc sulphide within an insulator and then applied alternating electrical fields to it. All of the publications that Destriau had done referred to this as being Losev Light. He happened to work within the labs of Madame Marie Currie who happened to also be an early pioneer in the luminescence field with her research of radium.

In 1951, Edward Jamgochian, Kurt Lehovec and Carl Accardo would be the first to explain these while using a device that used SiC crystals that had used a continuous source from a pulse generator or even a battery and then had compared them to pure, variant crystals within the 1950s.

Rubin Braunstine who was working for RCA had introduced infrared transmission from a form of gallium arsenide as well as many other semiconductor type of alloys in the 1950s. He had also seen that the emissions from infrared light could be made by a single diode structure while utilizing forms of indium phosphide, gallium antimonide, silicon germanium, as well as gallium arsenide alloy that were placed a temperature of 77 Kelvin and at room temperature.

This had also been demonstrated further by Braunstein in 1957 which stated that all of the rudimentary devices were able to be utilized for short distance non-radio communications. Kroemer had talked about how Braunstein managed to create a simple link for optical communication which allowed music that came from record players to go through electronics. These were able for the forward currents to be modulated of the gallium arsenide diodes. The type of light that had been found through the PbS diode had done some from a good distance away. It would be this particular signal that whenever it went through audio amplifiers and played using loudspeakers. The beam would intercept what is going on and then stop the music. This particular set up had pushed for the utilization of LEDs in optical communications.

It would be in 1961 when James Biard who was working in Dallas, Texas at Texas Instruments along with Gary Pittman had found a near infrared light emission that would come tunneled diodes that had been created using gallium arsenide substrates. During the same year, they were able to demonstrate an efficient light emission as well as signal connections between a photodetector that was an electrically isolated semiconductor and the p-n junction of GaAs light emitter. It would be during 1962 that Pittman and Biard would file for a patent that was titled Semi-Conductor Radiant Diode. This patent had been based using their findings that had described using a p-n junction light emitting diode that was zinc diffused that had a spaced cathode contact which would allow there to be infrared light emission that was under forward bias efficiently. Once they had established all of the priorities of the work that was based on multiple books on engineering that had predated and submissions from Lincoln Lab at MIT, General Electric, Bell Labs, IBM, and RCA, the patent office had given these guys a patent for a GaAs IR LED that was filed under the U.S. patent number of US323513, which would be the very first practical version. It was right after filing for this patent that Texas Instruments had started to manufacture a bunch of infrared diodes. Then they would announce the first commercial product that used light emitting diodes which was the SNX 100, which used pure gallium arsenide crystals to create a light output. Then during 1963, they would announce the creation of a commercial hemi-spherical LED which would be named SNX-110.

One of the first types of visible spectrum light was red and it had been created by Nick Holonyak Jr. in 1962 when he was working for G.E. It would be during December of 1962 that he had reported about his light emitting diode in the journal named Applied Physics Letters. M. George Craford who was a former student of Holonyak had created a yellow version which would eventually improve the brightness of the red and even red orange lights by 10 in the 1970s. By time 1976 rolled around, TP Pearsall had made a high efficiency, high brightness versions that were to be used by optical fiber telecommunications by creating a new semiconductor material that were made just for these optical fiber transmission wave lengths.

When it comes to the very first commercial types which were often used as a replacement for neon and incandescent indicator lights, and within 7 segment displays, the first for expensive equipment like electronic and lab test equipment and then eventually placed in appliances like watches, calculators, telephones, radios, and TVs. It was not until 1968, that infrared and visible lights were considered to be super expensive which was priced around $200 per unit and that meant that there were hardly any practical uses for them. Eventually Monsanto would be the first company to start mass producing these visible types while using GaAsP in 1968 in order for the creation of red indicators that would be the best to use in electronics. Originally Hewlett Packard had introduced them as well in 1968 while using the GaAsP that was supplied by the Monsanto Company. 3It was these Red LEDs that were bright enough to be used an indicator light because the light output was not enough to really shine light on a larger area. The readouts for the calculators were pretty small so the plastic lenses that were being used were built over every digit in order to make sure that they would be easy to read. Eventually other colors started becoming more popular and it was being applied into many more appliances as well as equipment. It was during the 1970s that the commercial successful versions were less than $0.05 per piece and they were being assembled by Fairchild Optoelectronics. It would be these devices that would use a compound semi-conductor chip that was made using planar processes that had been invented by Doctor Jean Hoerni who was working for Fairchild Semiconductor. It was the combination of the innovative packaging methods and planar processing for chip fabrication that allowed the company that was being lead by Thomas Brandt to really hit those cost reductions that were really needed at the time. Many producers would continue to use these methods to today.

Many of the LEDs were being made to be very common for the T1¾ and T1 packages, but because of the rising output of power, it had grown to be really needed to shed all of the excess heat in order to keep the reliability of the product and then that meant that there needed to be more complex packaging created in order to allow for efficient heat dissipation. The packaging for the modern high-powered light emitting diodes hardly bear any type of resemblance to all of the previous packaging.

The blue types were made by Herbert Maruska who worked for RCA during 1972. He had utilized GaN on top of a sapphire substrate and gallium nitride on a sapphire substrate. It was these types that had been originally been sold inside of the U.S. by Cree in the 1980s, but these blue versions had been too bright.

A super bright blue version had been shown by Nichia Corp and had been demonstrated by Shuji Nakamura during 1994 and was based using InGaN. While this was going on Hiroshi Amona and Isamu Akasaki located in Nagoya had been creating GaN nucleation while using a sapphire substrate and had been demonstrating these p-type dopings. All three of these people had been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize during 2014 for all of the work done. It would be during 1995 at the Cardiff University Lab that Alberto Barbieri would investigate the reliability and efficiency of high brightness versions and then would demonstrate a type of transparent contact version that used indium tin oxide on AIGaInP/GaAs.

During processes for growing gallium nitride versions in 2001 as well as 2002, these versions used silicon and they worked great. It would be during 2012 that Osram would demonstrate a high powered InGaN version that was grown on silicon substrates. It would be released commercially, and they would be in production at the Plessey Semi-Conductions. Since 2017, many of the manufacturers are still using SiC as the substrate, however the sapphire substrates are much more common.

Obtaining the high efficiency for the blue versions were eventually quickly followed up with the creation of a white LED. This was called YAG and had a phosphor coating that was on emitter that would absorb blue emissions, then would produce a yellow light using fluorescence. It was this combination of the yellow with a very little of blue remaining would cause the light to appear to be white to the human eye. However, with the use of various types of phosphors it would then become very able to create red and green light while using fluorescence.

The light efficiency and output of the blue and almost ultraviolet versions began to rise while the cost of any reliable devices had begun to fall. This would ultimately lead to having higher powered white light LEDs to brighten up areas which had begun to replace fluorescent and incandescent lighting.