Quantum Light™ Optic

QD Vision's Quantum Light™ optic enables LED lighting companies to produce lamps and downlight fixtures that combine the familiar warmth and color of incandescent bulbs with the energy efficiency of LED technology. The first lamp incorporating Quantum Light™ optics became available in the first quarter of 2010. The Quantum Light™ optic is applied to the exit face of an LED replacement lamp or downlight fixture. These quantum dot-enhanced products demonstrate high color quality and efficiency, together with energy savings of up to 80% and 50,000 hours of product life.  

Because the first replacement lamps to employ Quantum Light^TM optics are compatible with a standard, screw-in ‘Edison’ base, they can easily replace incandescent and halogen lamps in existing downlight fixtures. In the United States, the DOE estimates the number of down lights and track heads with Edison base lamp installations at more than 139 million commercial applications and more than 262 million residential lighting applications. QD Vision and its commercial partners  expect that availability of these high-efficiency lamps with high color quality will rapidly accelerate the penetration of LEDs into the $4 billion U.S. lamp market. The potential impact on the environment could be significant. A full conversion to LEDs of existing downlights and track heads in the US (~10% of US fixtures) represents an annual savings of more than 35 billion kW hours of electricity (nearly $4 billion at U.S. average pricing), which is the equivalent of nearly 6 power plants or more than 60 million barrels of oil per year.

LED replacement lamps incorporating Quantum Light^TM optics achieve industry-leading power efficiency levels that are up to 50% higher than the next closest alternative lamp with comparable color quality. This power efficiency, which is roughly 6 times better than incandescent bulbs and over 3 times better than halogen lamps, can yield hundreds of dollars in energy savings over the 50,000- hour life of these lamps.

Quantum Light™ optics and films also offer a breakthrough solution to the display industry. Using the same quantum dots, inks and films, the Quantum Light^TM materials will improve light throughput, power efficiency and color gamut of displays, and deliver a strong value proposition for that market.

How the Quantum Light™ optic works:

• A thin film of Quantum Light^TM materials is coated over the cover plate
• The resulting optic is placed in front of an LED lamp or fixture
• Quantum Light^TM materials absorb some of the cool blue LED light and efficiently re-emit it as warm red light
• This balances the lighting color spectrum, creating a pleasing incandescent quality light with significantly higher efficiency
• Higher efficiency translates into the need for fewer LEDs to achieve a given brightness level, which translates to a lower cost to make the LED lamp or fixture

Quantum Light™ optics offer far superior solutions compared to conventional phosphors for achieving warm, rich colors in LED lighting. For example:

Adding orange and red phosphors to LED light sources creates warm light, but wastes energy. The typical orange phosphor emits broad spectrum orange and deep red light, which is less visible to the human eye, resulting in lower luminous efficiency and perceived brightness. Quantum Light™ optics are highly tunable light-emitting components with a narrow band emission. All the light emitted from Quantum Light™ optics is visible, and used efficiently by the lamp and the human observer.