Study maps three decades of white LED progress and key innovation drivers

White light-emitting diodes (LEDs), the semiconductor devices underpinning the functioning of countless lighting technologies on the market today, were first released to the public in 1996. Following their commercial debut, these devices have fueled significant advancements within the electronics and lighting industry, due to their remarkable energy efficiencies and extended lifespans.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge and ETH Zurich recently carried out a study aimed at re-tracing the development of white LEDs over the past three decades, as well as trends in their costs and innovations in other engineering fields that fueled their advancement. Their paper, published in Nature Energy, was part of a larger research project that investigated the factors driving innovation in the clean energy sector.

“As part of our research, we looked at three key technologies at the forefront of the ongoing energy transition: solar photovoltaics for energy generation, lithium-ion batteries for energy storage, and white LEDs for efficient energy use in lighting,” Michael P. Weinold, first author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

“Each of the three technologies has experienced rapid cost declines and impressive performance improvements in the past decades. Understanding these drivers of progress can help us accelerate innovation in other low-carbon technologies.”

The researchers’ study dealt with the complex challenge of tracing advancements in the development of LEDs. They achieved this by browsing through hundreds of patents, scientific publications, technical reports, and market data released up to 2020.

“We also conducted interviews with prominent experts in solid-state lighting technology, semiconductor manufacturing, and phosphor development,” explained Weinold. “This allowed us to identify key technological and manufacturing innovations that contributed to historical progress in LED cost and performance. We then used this information as an input to the manufacturing cost and performance models we developed to quantify the contribution of individual innovations to overall progress.”

The analyses carried out by Weinold and his colleagues showed that most improvements in the energy efficiency of LEDs were driven by research and development (R&D) efforts. Surprisingly, however, the researchers found that R&D contributed relatively little to reductions in the cost of the devices, which were instead linked to economies of scale and continuous manufacturing process improvements over time.

“We also identified a particularly intriguing role of ‘technology spillovers’—technical knowledge from other technologies and scientific fields finding new applications in white LEDs—in driving improvements in the quality of LED light that were instrumental in increasing the adoption of this technology by consumers,” said Weinold.

“These findings suggest that innovation in LEDs and other consumer-facing demand-side energy technologies may require different approaches to R&D management and policy support than in supply-side energy technologies such as solar and wind energy.”

The findings of this recent study offer new valuable insight into the factors that have contributed to the advancement and widespread adoption of LEDs over the past decades, which could guide future efforts aimed at further improving these devices. Based on their analyses, the researchers suggest that LED manufacturers should focus more on the needs of users, while also deliberately searching for external knowledge and research advancements that could drive innovation in the field.

“We are now working on synthesizing the findings of the project across the three technologies—white LEDs, solar photovoltaics and lithium-ion batteries—to make recommendations for policymakers and R&D managers on how to accelerate low-carbon innovation,” added Sergey Kolesnikov, another author of the paper.

“In parallel, using data on past cost and performance trends that we collected for LEDs and other energy technologies, we work on developing new probabilistic technology cost forecasting methods that will allow us to predict future costs of critical technologies while simultaneously accounting for the inherent uncertainty of the innovation process.”

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