light sources

[darkfather]

does anyone know of a cheap efficient (ideally greater than 80%) light source? I'm after one for UVa 315-450nm and one for green light at 520nm +-20nm. The ones I have looked at so far are neither cheap nor efficient. I need a fairly intense source preferable (in the order of watts rather than milliwatts)....

 

[IRstuff]

please define "cheap"

TTFN

 

[logbook]

Is 80% a reasonable efficiency for a light source, any light source? I thought solid state devices were quite efficient but I haven’t seen any figures on it. Fluorescent tubes are very efficient compared to incandescents, but again I would have thought the actual production of light efficiency was horribly poor. I would be interested in seeing actual figures for light watts per electrical watt.

 

[IRstuff]

EL panels are probably the most efficient lights around, but they're available in a limited set of colors.

As for the original poster, he needs a laser diode, but they're not cheap and not necessarily that efficient

TTFN

 

[darkfather]

by cheap I'm looking in the order of hundreds of pounds/dollars rather than thousands. The efficiency of most solid state lasers is in the order of 0.01%, I'd like to waste less energy than that...