Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) - light sources that lately have found increasing application in various fields due to the efficiency and long service life. First of all, LEDs are new type of light sources, alternative to still used incandescent, fluorescent light, etc.
The physical principle of light emission of LEDs is similar to that of lasers - light is emitted by the semiconductor heterostructures.
When operating, LEDs dissipate heat of up to 50% of electric power. This results in significant heating of LEDs and reduces the operational lifetime.
This problem is typically solved by various relatively cheap solutions for LED systems for wide range of consumer applications. Here design solutions with low price dominate for thermal management tasks.
However, for special and Hi-End applications more complex thermal management for LEDs is a high priority. In addition to problems with overheating, heat deteriorates the performance parameters of LED systems.
In particular, for multispectral LED systems, for example, RGB LED light sources of projectors, there is a different temperature dependence of the emissivity of spectral channels (red, green, blue). Because of this, when the overall temperature is changed the summarized optical spectrum from such a source is changed.
This problem is solved by intellectual tracker system individually administering channels in dependence on the temperature. Or, alternatively, by applying active temperature regulation. This approach also increases the life of the LEDs.
For these tasks, there is no better solution than the use of thermoelectric Peltier coolers (TECs).
This is due to the advantages of the TEC. TEC is miniature, can be easily integrated with LED and provide a significant heat dissipation at the level of 15-40 Watt per square centimeter and even more.
In addition, TEC has unique reliability of several hundred thousand hours of continuous operation. It is more than 20-25 years of operation without maintenance, replacement, which is important because the life span of led systems is significant.
Due to the fact that in these applications the heat dissipation and temperature control are needed, the deep cooling is not required. The required cooling power depends on application. The TEC dimensions are also determined by a wide range of designs.
Among the TEC series one can choose the types of the parameters with the cooling capacity and dimensions in a wide range.
To select a suitable solution and the optimal TEC for an application, the supporting is available at RMT’s website. For detailed modeling and calculations the company RMT provides our customers by free software or .And for advice and assistance.