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led by Enfis
The UK Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (formerly part of
Department of Trade and Industry) has helped to enable the formation of a large vertically integrated consortium to focus on development of energy efficient solid-state light sources based on novel GaN LED chip technology. < P >
In a £3.3 million research project, codenamed NoveLELS, a consortium of 9 partners consisting of
2 universities, 4 SMEs and 3 large aerospace companies will come together to develop high efficiency and high brightness solid-state light sources which will be trialled for use in aircraft cockpits and exterior lighting and consumer LCD devices. The UK Government and Technology Strategy Board has shown strong commitment to the solid-state lighting sector and hence towards energy reduction through the support of funding in excess of £1.7M for this project. < P >
The consortium companies consists of aerospace companies Airbus and AgustaWestland, GE Aviation, IQE plc, Exxelis Limited, Mesophotonics Limited and Enfis Limited. Two world leading research groups at University of Bath and Brunel University will lead the research of novel LED chips and phosphor technology. < P >
The project, started in March 2007, is led by Enfis, a company recently floated on the London Stock Exchange. The project seeks to commercialise high power solid-state LED sources and is focused on the improvement of efficiency and quality of the light from these new light sources. < P >
A major project goal is to stimulate the commercialisation of advanced GaN epitaxy and LED chip manufacturing in conjunction with advanced phosphors and thermally efficient packaging to create novel LED arrays and light engines for solid-state lighting applications. < P >
The use of photonic crystal technology, pioneered by Mesophotonics along with novel epitaxial processes, pioneered at University of Bath and advanced phosphor technology, developed at Brunel University, will result in the achievement of high luminous efficacy and tailored spatial profile will provide key benefits in terms of energy efficiency and optical coupling efficiency. < P >
A significant spin-off from the project will be the trial of a new method of GaN based LED chip production which is expected to dramatically reduce the cost per Lumen of solid-state light sources. The new methods will achieve this by increasing the yield of LED chip production and allowing the scaling of production to larger epitaxial wafer sizes without significant loss of yield through new GaN epitaxial processes pioneered at the University of Bath. < P >
The end users of the technology in this project are in the aerospace and LCD backlighting markets and will provide a critical benchmark for the LED outputs. The end users will also be evaluating the use of this new LED technology within their applications. Adoption of LED technology by the partners into these markets will be a measurable output from the project. In addition the expected improvement in light quality and energy efficiency will allow the LED arrays and light engines to be used in other markets such as architectural, commercial office, entertainment and retail lighting as well as eventually being used in the home. < P >
NoveLELS project manager, Dr Gareth Jones, CTO of Enfis Group plc stated that "By supporting this large collaborative project, the UK Government is stimulating both essential research and IP generation which will promote the UK to the forefront of leading research on a global level along with enabling a commercialisation route for epitaxy, chip fabrication and LED array manufacture within the UK."
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