Antropy
THE ANTI-ENTROPIC SOLUTION
Antropy Planar Coupler-Concentrator (ApCC)
The ApCC uses proven and proprietary thin film materials and recently allowed new patents. Antropy’s planar LED coupler-concentrator (ApCC) is a line of OEM and manufacture for contract products that increases the efficiency, performance, and functionality of LEDs. With these products Antropy is breaking through the cost/performance barriers that block the adoption of today’s solid-state lighting.
Design: Antropy ApCC vs. Conventional LED Lamp
ApCCs designs comprise a new portfolio of light extraction, conversion and transport products that add value to SSL products and manufacturers.
- Enables the LED to be more efficient, lower cost, thin, edge emitting and higher performing. Planar LEDs are themselves much more efficient and easier to cool than the vertical cavity LEDs used around the world by other solid state white light companies.
- Collects, concentrates and directs all the output from LED without loss (adiabatic) in plane. Our ApCCs have virtually perfect in plane light extraction. They increase the so called ‘external efficiency’ of all LEDs.
- Combines and concentrates light from multiple LEDS for higher brightness or color mixing.
- ApCCs are extremely durable to heat and moisture. Unlike polymer devices, ApCCs are absorption free, stable to more than 1000C, and stable in damp heat.
- LED and coupler can be fully mirrored by the electrodes and cooled in the package from top and bottom.
Standard Competitive Technology
Lumileds, flip chip package with vertical emission.
Standard LED with lens assembly to focus light.
Antropy ApCC coupled with three LEDs.
ApCC Concentration and Directional Imaging of Light:
Directs light to either free space or another optical device, such as a fiber, without loss. Light emission from the tip of a tapered ApCC radiates into a wider angle in plane as the width of the tip is decreased forming a very small virtual source which is easy to focus and fiber couple. ApCCs concentrate and direct light for:
- Output spot size and angle (eliminating expensive reflectors and lenses).
- Coupled output into fiber or multiple fibers.
- Coupled output to multi-mode and single-mode.
Focus Light: concentrated directional output eliminates the need for expensive reflectors, lenses, and bulky thermal bulbs and fixtures. No LED manufacturer is currently able to produce an LED light that can be focused without adding significant costs. Because of the these unique advantages, Antropy‘s ApCC is well suited for the high brightness LED market segment; specifically for commercial/industrial, architectural, outdoor, entertainment, and safety/security LED lighting applications, where there is a need for light emissions to be focused or directed.
Fiber Coupling for Remote Lighting Applications:
Think of a light source with no bulb, no heat, one that lasts forever. Antropy’s ApCC has the ability to revolutionize solid state lighting. It can output match multi-mode high intensity fiber for efficient, remote lighting applications, eliminating costly electrical wire box installation and noisome heat dissipation at the lamp housing, the most costly and expensive aspect of standard bright SSL lamp deployment.
Phosphor/Light Conversion:
Many advances in LED and phosphor performance have contributed to the current capability of LED/white light products. The overall capability in electric to light conversion is the product of two efficiencies; the so called external quantum efficiency of the LED in converting electric power to blue light, and the efficiency of the phosphor in converting some of the light to a longer wavelength(s). The current status of efficiency is now portrayed as a “Wall.”
Long Optical Path:
ApCCs incorporate patented, high index, refractory oxide films - an industry breakthrough. The refractory oxide process forms perfect optical glass at low temperature, without melting or mixing, constituting a new, higher performance category in the highly contested phosphor space.
Most white-light LEDs use high concentration, short path phosphors, and mm long optical paths for the conversion of blue to white-light (down conversion), resulting in high re-absorption. The active ApCC integrates the phosphor into the cm long high index layer, allowing lower concentration phosphor ions, resulting in less re-absorption, higher optical intensity and improved emission.
In one Antropy ApCC design the blue light can be concentrated up to ten times in a very thin phosphor layer providing stimulated light emission, major improvements for conversion efficiency and color quality. Separation of the phosphor from the LED allows improved cooling and major improvement in droop and power handling.
Standard Competitive Technology
Luxion flip chip with vertical emission and conformal epoxy-phosphor coating
Cooler LED/Extended Lifetime:
The ApCC integrates the phosphor into a long path concentrator layer. A remote phosphor assists the cooling and performance of the LED and phosphor. With the phosphors away from the heat of the LED, not insulating the LED as do standard phosphor devices, the LED is kept cooler, extending the lifetime of the lamp.
Improved Phosphor Conversion Efficiency and Quality
High Index, Refractory Oxide Films
A unique feature of the Antropy’s patented, high index, refractory oxide films is that a higher index core can be tapered to a thinner film away from the facet edge. The gradual taper over several millimeters, as shown, guides light into the thin higher index core layer, decreasing the spot size and concentrating the light without any reflection or scattering. This concentrates all the light and provides for a much higher optical intensity in a layer with much lower phosphor concentration resulting in stimulated emission and optical broadening, two very powerful, new attributes for efficiency and color quality.