Color tunable hybrid lamp: LED-incandescent and

LED-fluorescent
Ivan Morenoa,b
a. Unidad Academica de Fisica, Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, 98060, Zacatecas, Mexico.
b. Department of Optics and Photonics, National Central University, Chung-Li 320, Taiwan.

ABSTRACT

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can be chosen to emit light in a wide variety of highly saturated colors. As a consequence,
a hybrid lamp assembled with colored LEDs and with one incandescent or fluorescent source easily allows the user to
dynamically select the desired color point without additional filters, with high color rendering index, and at a low cost.

We measure some properties of a color tunable lamp that uses both colored LEDs and an incandescent or a fluorescent
source. For the LED-incandescent type, we assemble an array of blue LEDs with a typical incandescent bulb source, and
to assemble a LED-fluorescent type we used an array of red LEDs with a commercially available compact fluorescent
lamp. Incandescent and fluorescent sources have a fixed intensity, while LED intensities are adjusted to tune color. For
LED-incandescent lamps, our experimental data show that the correlated color temperature (CCT) can be linearly tuned
with the electric current of the LED array. The LED-fluorescent lamp exhibits a CCT that exponentially varies with the
drive current of red LEDs.

Key words: light-emitting diode, hybrid tunable source, incandescent, fluorescent.

1. INTRODUCTION
Besides the energy savings and environmental benefits provided by solid-state lighting technology,1 LED-based lamps
offer a property absent in conventional sources, controllability of their color temperature.2 A source made of colored
LEDs easily allows the user to dynamically select the desired color point of the lamp without additional filters (this is
because LEDs can be chosen to emit light in a wide variety of highly saturated colors).3 This color adjustability could
enable the user to efficiently regulate the human circadian (cycle of wake and sleep) rhythm. Such circadian light
sources with tunability of color temperature would be beneficial to human performance, well-being, and basic health.4 A
lamp replicating the Sun´s color temperatures during the day would be a very useful illumination source, given that
humans adapted to Sun´s light during their evolution. In addition, such light sources may be used to influence and
manipulate the way humans perceive images in a variety of applications.

Several methods to produce color tunable white light LED lamps have been proposed and studied, for example:
combining multicolored LEDs,3,5 by a combination of white LEDs with colored LEDs,6-8 and by means of spectral
filters.9 However, the challenge of introducing LEDs to the market of general lighting is big. Indeed, incandescent and
fluorescent lamps remain the most popular sources of light. Several studies indicate that LED will probably enter with
force to the market of the general illumination up to the 2020. Meanwhile, technologies of different type can be
combined to simultaneously take advantages of: the optical properties of LEDs, incandescent sources (very low purchase
cost, and high color rendering index), and fluorescent sources (low purchase cost, and high optical efficacy). In
particular, the addition of the light from colored LEDs to the light from a fluorescent or incandescent lamp offers the
capability to dynamically tune the color of the emitted light. Recently a well established company proposed and patented
the combination of a LED array with a fluorescent tube luminaire to syntonize the color.10 Here we measure the color
tuning capacity of some examples of hybrid lamps with both incandescent and fluorescent compact sources.

In what follows, we describe in detail our study of color tunability of well-known sources (incandescent and fluorescent)
by incorporating colored LED sources to the lamp. A brief comment of incandescent and fluorescent lighting
technologies is included in Sec. 2. In Sec. 3 we review the concept of correlated color temperature (CCT). Two

Sixth Symposium Optics in Industry, edited by Julio C. Gutiérrez-Vega, Josué Dávila-Rodríguez, Carlos López-Mariscal,
Proc. of SPIE Vol. 6422, 64220N, (2007) · 0277-786X/07/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.742582

Proc. of SPIE Vol. 6422 64220N-1

incandescent sources and two fluorescent sources with the addition of LED sources are experimentally investigated in
Sec. 4-6, and our conclusions are summarized in Sec. 7.

2. INCANDESCENT AND FLUORESCENT LAMPS11

In 1879 Thomas Edison in the United States and Joseph Swan in England were able to produce the world’s first practical
incandescent bulb. The emission of any incandescent lamp is due to blackbody radiation with a peak wavelength out of
the visible region, and then most of the emission is in the infrared. Additional to the low efficacy, incandescent bulbs
failure due to loss of tungsten from the filament by evaporation, which results in a shorter lifetime. However, this light
source remains the most popular and inexpensive technology for residence lighting.

Fluorescent lamps dominate the market in general lighting of industrial, offices, and commercial buildings. These
sources produce visible light by photoluminescence. Ultraviolet radiation reaches phosphors on the tubular bulb
producing visible radiation. At optimal conditions, the luminous efficiency of fluorescent sources is about 4 times higher
than that of incandescent bulbs, but color rendering is poor. Compact fluorescent lamps became available few years ago,
offering a longer life and lower power consumption than incandescent sources, but have a lower capability to render the
colors of an illuminated object (i.e., a low color rendering index).

Currently, incandescent and fluorescent lamps posse some advantages over LED lighting. On the other hand, LEDs also
present advantages over traditional lighting technologies. A proper combination of different lighting technologies can
take several advantages. Properties of hybrid fluorescent-solar lamps have been recently studied and reported.12
Therefore, a hybrid lamp can combine the attributes of different-nature lighting sources, in particular color tunability for
LEDs.

3. COLOR
Color temperature (°K) is a term used to describe the relationship of a white light source with a Planck’s blackbody
radiator. At increasing temperatures it emits visible radiation in the red, orange, yellow, white, and ultimately bluish
white. In general, a fluorescent or an incandescent white light source generates light with a different spectrum than a
blackbody radiator. Color temperature of such light sources can be characterized in terms of correlated color
temperature. The CCT is an extrapolation of the color of the light source to the color of a blackbody radiator of a given
color temperature such that they appear the same color to the human eye.

The CCT for any white color can be determined by drawing a perpendicular line from the measured 1960 CIE (u, v)
color coordinate to the Planckian blackbody locus to determine the (u, v) Planckian intercept. Then the CCT of the white
color would correspond to the surface temperature of a Planckian blackbody radiator with the same (u, v) color
coordinate.

4. EXPERIMENTAL INFORMATION
Spectral distribution was measured for all lamps that we used. A fiber optic spectrometer (Ocean Optics USB2000) was
used for all spectroradiometric measurements. The fiber optic with both a cosine corrector diffuser and a pinhole was
positioned 1m from each hybrid LED lamp. We assembled the hybrid lamp over an aluminum framework to dissipate
heat (Figs. 1(a) and (b)). The fixture is assembled with 4 colored LEDs of equal color. LED array has a square geometry
with optimal dimensions to produce an homogeneous irradiance distribution on an illuminated object at a distance
>0.3m.13 The mounted LEDs (LUMILED® LXHL-PD01 red and LXHL-PR03 royal blue Luxon®) have a wide
Lambertian-type intensity pattern14 with a standard viewing angle θ½=60º. Each LED array was operated in the
laboratory with 12 V dc, and LEDs were connected in series. Spectral measurements were performed for each hybrid
lamp at 30 mA increments of blue LED current, and 50 mA increments for red LEDs.
Four commercially available lamps (1 Incandescent Philips 40 W A55, 1 Incandescent GE Edison® Halogen
35W JDR, 1 Fluorescent GE Edison® Mini Spiral T2 11W, and 1 Fluorescent Tecno lite CE 20W) were randomly
selected and used for color measurements (Fig. 1(c)).

Proc. of SPIE Vol. 6422 64220N-2

 (a) (b) (c)
Fig. 1. (Color online) (a) Hybrid lamp with one incandescent bulb and four high-power blue LEDs. (c) Hybrid lamp with one compact
fluorescent lamp and four high-power red LEDs. (c) Contemporary compact fluorescent lamp and typical incandescent lamps that we
used for measurements.

5. COLOR TUNABILITY MEASUREMENT

Fluorescent and incandescent lamps were used in combination with LEDs. The spectral power distribution of each
incandescent and fluorescent lamp can be seen in Fig. 2. The measured CCT for incandescent bulbs were 2560 K (Halogen
35) and 2370 K (Philips A55). CCTs of 3330 K (Mini Spiral T2) and 4300 K (Tecno lite CE) were measured for the
fluorescent lamps.

Fluorescent Tecno lite CE 20W Incandescent GE Edison® Halogen 35W

0,8
i5
0,6-1 0
0
ci)
0.4 0.4

400 450 500 550

Wavelenght (nm)
600 650 700 400
_____
450 500 550
Wavelenght (nm)
600 650 700

Fig. 2. Spectral power distribution within the visible region of incandescent and fluorescent lamps that we used to
assemble each hybrid lamp.

LED sources have different properties than incandescent and fluorescent lamps due to a radically different spectral
emission. Figure 3 (left) shows an example of the result of mixing blue LED light with incandescent emission. Spectral

Proc. of SPIE Vol. 6422 64220N-3

power distribution of the two colored LED arrays that assembled hybrid lamps is shown in Fig. 3 (right). Peak
wavelength and spectral width did not change considerably when adjusting drive current. Mean peak wavelength is ~450
nm for blue LED array, and ~640 nm for red LED array. The peak wavelength shift due to drive current change was
<3nm (red LEDs, for a current change from 50 to 350 mA) and <2nm (blue LEDs, for a current change from 30 to
370mA). Therefore, a hybrid lamp can be tuned over a wide range of color temperatures over an almost right line in the
chromaticity CIE 1931 diagram (see Fig. 4).

The color tuning of studied hybrid lamps on the CIE chromaticity diagram is shown in Fig. 4. Hybrid lamps A, B, C, and
D are assembled with sources incandescent Philips A55, incandescent GE Edison®, fluorescent T2, and fluorescent CE,
respectively. The color locus of all lamps is almost a straight line. The diagram includes Planckian black-body locus for
reference. A current-controlled color tuning of hybrid lamps is achieved by driving colored LEDs only. Colored LED
light is used as the endpoint close to the monochromatic locus of the CIE diagram. To arrive to the endpoint for
completing the locus of color points, an array with more LEDs (to produce more radiant flux) is required. The measured
CCT in function of driving current of LEDs is presented in Fig. 5.

(1 Incandescent Philips A55) + (4 Blue LED5)

5 0,8

::1 J
0,6

U,4

500 550 bOO

O21J 400 450
IuED
500 550 600 650 700
Wavelenght (nm) Wavelenght (nm)

Fig. 3. (Left) An example of measured spectral power distribution of hybrid lamp (inset): Incandescent-LED. (Right)
Measured spectral power distribution of colored LEDs.

0,9
-s-- Hybrid lamp A (incandescent)
-4— Hybrid lamp B (incandescent)
08
—U— Hybrid lamp C (fluorescent)
—.- Hybrid lamp D (fluorescent)
0,7 —Planckian locus

0,6

--

20

0'0
-
00 'O 'O 20 'O 90 90 L'0 20
x
Fig. 4. Color tuning of hybrid lamps A-D on the CIE chromaticity diagram. The locus A, B, C, and D are the emission
colors of hybrid lamps with sources: incandescent Philips A55, incandescent GE Edison®, fluorescent T2, and
fluorescent CE, respectively.

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 4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
-- Hybrid lamp A (incandescent)
1000 -4— Hybrid lamp B (incandescent)
—U— Hybrid lamp C (fluorescent)
500 —.— Hybrid lamp D (fluorescent)

0 I
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Current, ILED (mA)

Fig. 5. Measured correlated color temperature (CCT) as a function of the electric current through LEDs (ILED).

6. DISCUSSIONS
Figure 4 shows that the chromatic locus is practically a straight line in all cases, which is due to the small shift in LED
wavelength. To increase the length of the chromatic locus, more LEDs should be added in the hybrid lamp. The
Planckian locus or another chromatic curve can be reproduced by adding one group of LEDs of different color.7 In Fig. 5
it is interesting to observe that CCT of the LED-incandescent lamp varies lineally with the electric current of LEDs.
However, the variation of CCT is exponential in the case of the LED-fluorescent lamp. Slope of the curves in Fig. 5 can
be increased by adding more LEDs to the lamp. By using blue LEDs with a pick wavelength in the range from 480nm to
490 nm, LED intensities can be adjusted to shift the hybrid lamp chromaticity along a similar curve to the blackbody
locus. It can be more appropriate to drive blue LEDs because, in addition to the short wavelength shift, blue light
contributes less to the luminance.3 Depending on the emission color of LEDs, tuning the electric current gives a wide
variety of routes to control the color on the CIE diagram. A tunable ambient illumination renders different colors in the
images that an observer can perceives (see Fig. 6).

7. SUMMARY
We have measured the chromatic tunability (Color locus, and CCT≈1500-4500K) of a lamp that uses both colored LEDs
and an incandescent or a fluorescent source. A future work can include: (a) The measurement of the tunability of the
color rendering index in function of the electric current through LEDs, as well as in function of other optical parameters
of importance. (b) The number of LEDs in the lamp can be increased to lengthen the chromatic locus. And, (c) the
effect of using LEDs of two or more colors in a hybrid lamp can also be analyzed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by CONACYT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia) grant J48199-F. I wrote the
final part of this article in the laboratory of Proff. Ching-Cherng Sun (Laboratory of Solid-State Lighting, Department of
Optics and Photonics of the National Central University), for that reason I appreciate the facilities that were provided.

Proc. of SPIE Vol. 6422 64220N-5

 CCT= 2370K, ILED= 0 mA CCT= 3550K, ILED= 360 mA
B (incandescent)

CCT=2560K, ILED=OmA
p C (fluorescent)

1?. :-
if

CCT= 3330K, ILED 0 mA CCT= 1500K, ILED= 350 mA

a)
0
Cl)
a)
0
0

CCT=4300 K, ILED 0 mA CCT= 1570 K,

Fig. 6. (Color online) Color rendition from a high quatilty color picture. Photos are taken under illumination with
different CCTs.

Proc. of SPIE Vol. 6422 64220N-6

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