Optical and thermal design of light emitting diodes omnidirectional bulb

Appl Opt. 2015 Oct 1;54(28):E94-101. doi: 10.1364/AO.54.000E94.

Abstract

The penetration of LED light bulbs into the lighting market is growing quickly in recent years due to significant increase of LED efficiency and reduction of cost. One major issue to be improved is the overall light bulb efficiency, which can fulfill "Energy Star for Lamps" while keeping sufficiently high efficiency. The efficiency issue results mainly from the high directionality of the LED sources and the corresponding solutions to make the emission more diverse. In this paper, a diffusion white reflection sheet (DWRS) with an array of holes is proposed as a high efficiency solution for modulating a light emission profile with SMD type LED source. The hole size is adjusted with fixed hole pitch to both maximize the efficiency and meet the omnidirectional specification. In addition, the concept of thermal plastic insertion molding metal is proposed for thermal management without fins for cooling. The prototype demonstrates the efficiency (Ef.) of 87.6% and LED pad temperature of 85°C, which shows the feasibility as a total solution for high efficiency LED omnidirectional bulbs.