High-power light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have begun to differentiate themselves from their more common cousins the indicator LED. Today these LEDs are designed to generate 10-100 lm per LED with efficiencies that surpass incandescent and halogen bulbs. After a summary of the motivation for the development of the high-power LED and a look at the future markets, we describe the current state of high-power LED technology and the challenges that lay ahead for development of a true "solid state lamp." We demonstrate record performance and reliability for high-power colored and white LEDs and show results from the worlds first 100-plus lumen white LED lamp, the solid state equivalent of Thomas Edison's 20-W incandescent lightbulb approximately one century later.

High power light emitting diodes (LEDs) are of interest for many lighting applications. Flux improvements can be achieved by scaling conventional chips to larger dimensions. However this scaling results in a decrease in extraction efficiency. These penalties can be offset by modifying the chip geometry such that the number of internal reflections is reduced, thereby increasing the probability of photon escape. LEDs with a truncated-inverted-pyramid (TIP) geometry have been fabricated and packaged. Peak efficiencies exceeding 100 ln/W have been measured (100 mA dc, 300 K) for orange (lambda(p) similar to 610 nm) devices. In the red wavelength regime (lambda(p) similar to 650 nm), peak external quantum efficiencies of 55% (100 mA. de, 300 K) have been achieved. Flux exceeding 65 lumens from a single 594 nm device has also been demonstrated. These characteristics match and/or exceed the performance of many conventional lighting sources.