Artificial lighting, huh?

On Oct 01, 2007, at 15:27 UTC, Xenophile wrote:

> Some people here seem to think that the state of the art in artificial
> lighting has improved to the point that you don't need windows,
> fibers, pipes or mirrors at all, but rather lighting elements in the
> ceiling, central shaft, or whatever. So let's go with that.
>
> Now, how big are these lights, and what kind? Are we talking huge
> electric arc lamps, or teeny-tiny LED's? Mercury vapor? I've got
> some ideas for those LED's, if that's what we're talking about.

You probably want to use whatever's most efficient at producing the
spectrum you need, though of course cost will be an important factor
too.

Current best efficiency as of a few years ago was 55% for sulfur
discharge lamps. However, LED and OLED technology has been improving
so fast it's hard to keep up with it. I wouldn't be at all surprised
if those outperform discharge lamps pretty soon (if they haven't
already). But these would probably be manufactured in biggish panels
(maybe a meter square?), rather than teeny tiny lights needing a
ridiculous amount of wiring and soldering.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...
Strout Custom Solutions, LLC