Welcome to the LEDs Magazine News & Insights newsletter for June 17, 2020. As I mentioned last week, we have a reader survey in the field. If you subscribe to the magazine you should have received an email asking you to complete the survey. Please take a moment and do so. It’s truly a short survey that should just take you a minute or two.
We had a disinfection story break yesterday out of Boston University that again confirms that UV-C-band (100–280-nm) radiation can kill the coronavirus. Researchers working with Signify mercury vapor lamps documented precisely the conditions under which coronavirus can be deactivated. Signify is ready to expand its production of such legacy lamps.
A lot of the suddenly very active UV space is focused on legacy lamps rather than solid-state lighting (SSL) approaches to UV. UV-C LEDs are still maturing. Such products are very useful in disinfecting flowing water or air in a closed environment. It would take quite a few LEDs today to deliver room-level disinfection, although UV LEDs will ultimately usurp the lamps market.
I’d remind you that we will have an excellent webcast on UV focused on disinfection tomorrow. Bob Karlicek, director of the Center for Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications (LESA) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), will separate fact from fiction relative to UV and disinfection. The presentation is at 1:00 PM Eastern.
We issued our monthly Lighting for Health and Wellbeing newsletter Monday. And of course a story in that sector promptly broke. We won’t wait until next month to tell you about a new survey/study at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at RPI. The project focused on people working from home during the pandemic enabled the researchers to better understand the importance of proper light on health. We will also have another lighting for health story for you in a day or so. Stay tuned.
In business news, we have a horticultural lighting story. Silicon-substrate LED specialist Plessey Semiconductor has quietly spun out the horticultural lighting business that it had nurtured as an application that could consume a lot of LEDs. The company did not announce the formation of what is now called Hyperion Grow Lights, but our Mark Halper tracked down the details about the transaction that happened some months back. Presumably, Hyperion will work with LEDs from Plessey and also from Osram Opto Semiconductors.
Speaking of horticultural lighting, we continue to plan our HortiCann Light + Tech conference that now will be held virtually because of the pandemic. Presentations will take place on Oct. 20–21.
You will find many more stories of interest in the body of today’s newsletter. And always feel free to contact me to discuss content we post or to pitch a contributed article.
- Maury Wright, (858) 748-6785, [email protected]