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White light can be
made different ways - by mixing reds, greens, and blues, by
using an ultraviolet LED to stimulate a white phosphor (the
same stuff that's inside a fluorescent bulb) or by using a blue-emitting
diode that excites a yellow-emitting phosphor embedded in the
epoxy dome. The combination of blue and yellow makes a white-emitting
LED. Combine a white phosphor LED with a few amber ones, and
you can create a range of different whites - from the romantic
glow of a candle flame to the hot, bright light of the sun.
Most "white" LEDs in production
today use a 450nm – 470nm blue GaN (gallium nitride) LED covered
by a yellowish phosphor coating usually made of cerium doped
yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG:Ce) crystals which have been powdered
and bound in a type of viscous adhesive. The LED chip emits
blue light, part of which is converted to yellow by the YAG:Ce.
The single crystal form of YAG:Ce is actually considered a scintillator
rather than a phosphor. Since yellow light stimulates the red
and green receptors of the eye, the resulting mix of blue and
yellow light gives the appearance of white.
White LEDs can also be made by coating
near ultraviolet (NUV) emitting LEDs with a mixture of high
efficiency europium based red and blue emitting phosphors plus
green emitting copper and aluminium doped zinc sulfide (ZnS:Cu,Al).
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