LED's efficiency exceeds 100%?

In their experiments, the researchers reduced the LED’s input power to just 30 picowatts and measured an output of 69 picowatts of light - an efficiency of 230%.

...

This light-emitting process cools the LED slightly, making it operate similar to a thermoelectric cooler.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2012-03-efficiency.html

There is a units issue here.  Watts of electricity is not equal to watts of optical power.  Watts of optical power has a luminosity function that works to covert emitted light into watts.  I think using watts for optical power is misleading - this article is a perfect example.  The laws of thermodynamics still apply, it isn't a spectacular discovery - its inappropriate comparison of unequal units.  The article does support the very good efficiency of LEDs, but does it in a misleading way.

I dont understand what you mean by that?

It is amount of energy. Light energy, or electric energy. I dont see what is the difference?

Different colour light has different wavelength.

It means basically, that if you power up red led by connecting to it a motor and spin the motor, you will have to spin the motor harder to get same amount of light from blue led: as blue LED has higher nm value or you can say, that blue light has higher frequency.

With electricity, it does not work this way since we talk about electrons: not photons.

But watts isnt about electrons or photons, but it means just energy.

So if we spin the motor with hands, we can measure how many joules per second our muscles do work. Or we can use direct electricity, and measure how many watts is that by multiplying the voltage with amperes.

Energy (watts) is wasted as heat, but watts are also produced as light.

In this study, it means that we spin the motor and there is coming (a very little amount with no sicnificant meaning to any "free energy device") more watts out, than we are spinning the motor.

So if we think now, that we could collect the energy that is produced free on this, we cannot harnest simply couse even the electric wire will use more watts in resistance, that the LED produces as picowatt is only 0,000 000 000 001 watts.

But the thing is, that somehow: the LED is producing energy.

I am sure, it has something to do with quantum entagled photons and quantum physics.

Or then the LED is just acting as peltier element, and producing the electricity with the temperature difference.

"The watt (symbol: W) is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units (SI) defined as 1 joule per second[1] and can be used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt

Here's an analogy.

Bob one basket of apples and give it to me.  I give Bob four baskets of apples.  Thus, Bob gets four times as much as he gave.

That's what it looks like.  But, actually, we have an equivocation.  Two similar or same words but drastically different meanings.  With my example, the word is "basket".

The imaginary basket Bob gave me has 10 apples in it.  Whereas my baskets hold two apples.  I take Bob's basket of apples and keep two apples as payment for my services.  I give him back four baskets, each with two apples in it for a total of 8 apples.  

Bob is actually down two apples, even though he has more baskets.


My limited understanding is that when we measure electricity we do so in "watts".  One way of measuring light is to do so in "watts", however, these luminosity watts (or whatever we want to call them) are not the equivalent of electrical watts.  "picowatts of light" seems to be the word for measuring light in this example.  "picowatts" seems to be the word for measuring electricity.  I'm not sure they are the same thing.  I've never seen anyone measure light in "picowatts of light" before so I'm getting the feeling like the researchers might have already decided on the outcome before starting their experiment and chose the units that best prove their point instead of using less biased measurements.

One way to consider claims such as this would be that if it were literally true as the article seems to say, it would be a gross violation of known physics, and would be the biggest story in decades in science. If scientists have not picked up on it and run with discussing it, either it is being misinterpreted, is truly baloney, or they are ALL blind. Which interpretation sounds more likely?

Here is explanation.

I dont think MIT researchers did anything to mispresent the study.

The LED generates electricity, so it gives out more power than you give in.

I would have hoped it would be quantum physics, since no-one cannot understand that so we can still have mystery in our life.

"while MIT’s diode puts out more than twice as much energy in photons as it’s fed in electrons, it doesn’t violate the conservation of energy because it appears to draw in heat energy from its surroundings instead. When it gets more than 100 percent electrically-efficient, it begins to cool down, stealing energy from its environment to convert into more photons."

https://www.exposingtruth.com/over-unity-led-light-a-reality/

To get above 100% efficiency, they increased the temperature of the LED to 135C (275F) with the tiniest amount current running through the LED. I would imagine one could easily produce a similar result by sticking an incandescent bulb in the oven. Once the oven gets hot enough, the filament will glow, and if you were to ramp down the current with a dimmer switch, you eventually would be getting more light out of the bulb power provided by the electrical current.

That was quite hilarious, really. Putting bulb in oven to make electricity!

But to be serious, let me explain more of this basket-stody that R Ranson gave us.

As watt is universal measurement for energy, I would see this like this:

people have baskets, filled with different food. Spirulina powder is electricity, apple is light.

So now we can say "basket filled with spirulina is different thing, than basket filled with apple".

And it is, but 1 kg of spirulina is the same as 1kg apples.

So kg is also universal measurement, we can use on everything just like watt is.

There is certain watt of energy in spirulina and also in apple: on electrons, on the chemical bonds etc.

Also there is certain amount of energy on electrons itself or in light photons.

Elelctricity can have different watt when voltage and ampere changes. Light has different energy on what colour the light is, basically.

But in the study itself, this finding is very good since it is a step forward to develop new generation LED.

The biggest problem with LEDs is that they heat up - without heating, they will last almost forever and also, use much less electricity.

What if we would have LED that cools itself down? LEDs work best in fact, below freezing point of water.

LED normal operating temperature is 60-120 celsius.

What if we could have LED light, that operates at room temperature? This would allow it to be very good option for plant lights since it would not burn the leaves when touched.

Also, the less it uses electricity: the better it is for off-grid all-year cultivation of plants in cold climates, where sun isnt producing much energy in winter.

"The photon energy can be represented by any unit of energy. Among the units commonly used to denote photon energy are the electronvolt (eV) and the joule (as well as its multiples, such as the microjoule). "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon_energy

John Wolfram wrote:To get above 100% efficiency, they increased the temperature of the LED to 135C (275F) with the tiniest amount current running through the LED. I would imagine one could easily produce a similar result by sticking an incandescent bulb in the oven. Once the oven gets hot enough, the filament will glow, and if you were to ramp down the current with a dimmer switch, you eventually would be getting more light out of the bulb power provided by the electrical current.

RIGHT!


It's the same as heat pumps and geothermal heating systems having greater than 100% efficiency.

You put some energy in, and more energy than that comes out. How? Some energy is gathered from elsewhere.

In the case of heat pumps and geothermal heating, the electricity does the work of moving the energy from the outside air or the underground into the house.

In the case of the LED, some of the light energy came from the electrical energy that went in, and some of the light energy came from heat energy that the LED absorbed.

In both cases, the device isn't creating energy, it's gathering energy.

I still have a little hope that this is mystery and related to quantum physics and quantum entagled photons.

just to explain shortly, I think the smallest part of universum is very small black hole.

since they are so tiny, they cannot even unite and grow.

matter, everything, atoms, just float on the "surface" of these little black holes.

and as they are so tiny, material isnt sucked into them.

just as we can put needle in water, and it will not sink couse of the surface tension. and thats how everything is connected, but we cannot observe the connection.

the reason why we cannot go below the absolute temperature, is that in that case: material will cease to exist which means, that material would be sucked into those little black holes.

so it would require a lots of energy, just like a big star collapses: it creates a black hole, which in fact is just, that the surface tension of these little black holes, breaks down and they unite.

just a theory of course.

but here is something about the entanglement of photons which is kind of cool.

so in my theory, the LEDs somehow disturb these surface tensions: releasing extra photons, from these little black holes.

just one idea: as we cannot have information from black hole, how about if we instert one of these quantum entangled photons into black hole and read the other one which remains outside: so that is how we can get information inside black hole.

i have many ideas, but i maybe hope that they never find out this idea. so dont tell them!

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/06/02/tiny-leds-pump-out-quantum-entangled-photons/

https://home.cern/about/physics/extra-dimensions-gravitons-and-tiny-black-holes

http://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-have-created-a-black-hole-in-the-lab-and-it-could-finally-confirm-the-existence-of-hawking-radiation