Circadian-effect engineering of solid-state lighting spectra for beneficial and tunable lighting

Optimization of solid-state lighting spectra is performed to achieve beneficial and tunable circadian effects. First, the minimum spectral circadian action factor (CAF) of 2700 K white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is studied for applications where biologically active illumination is undesirable. It is found that white-LEDs based on (i) RGB chips, (ii) blue & red chips plus green phosphor, and (iii) blue chip plus green & red phosphors are the corresponding minimum-CAF solutions at color-rendering index (CRI) requirements of 80, 90, and 95, respectively. Second, maximum CAF tunability of LED clusters is studied for dynamic daylighting applications. A dichromatic phosphor-converted blue-centered LED, a dichromatic phosphor-converted green-centered LED, and a monochromatic red LED are grouped to obtain white spectra between 2700 K and 6500 K. A maximum CAF tunability of 3.25 times is achieved with CRI above 90 and luminous efficacy of radiation of 313 - 373 lm/W. We show that our approaches have advantages over previously reported solutions on system simplicity, minimum achievable CAF value, CAF tunability range, and light source efficacy.