Nichia LED spectrum innovation delivers for Zumtobel in human-centric lighting fixtures

Nichia has announced a joint product development collaboration with solid-state lighting (SSL) manufacturer Zumtobel intended to deliver cost-effective luminaires with direct applicability to lighting for health and wellbeing applications while also offering the option of great color rendering. Specifically, the development will be based around Nichia Optisolis and Vitasolis LEDs used in Light Fields III and Ondaria luminaires. The products will be offered with the option that will be called Zumtobel Spectrum, and the light-engine design will be proliferated to more luminaire models in the Zumtobel portfolio going forward.

For the past few years, Nichia has regularly brought new engineered spectra to market in packaged LEDs with brands that carry the “-solis” suffix. In each case, the LED designs target specific applications and enable simpler routes through product development to service the application at hand. Nichia first revealed the Vitasolis technology at LightFair International in the spring of 2019. In early 2020, Nichia was recognized with an LEDs Magazine Sapphire Award for Vitasolis.

Nichia took a slightly different approach with Vitasolis than has most of the industry with human-centric lighting-targeted LEDs. The packaged LED only delivers the daytime spectrum needed to deliver an energy boost and in turn improve sleep patterns. That spectrum is delivered with higher-than-typical cyan energy in a phosphor-converted white LED. Other manufacturers have turned to cyan emitters or pumps to realize a cyan boost.

The Vitasolis approach is cost effective and engineered for moderate color rendering performance, which can help drive adoption of lighting for health and wellbeing installations. “The demand for high-quality, human-centric LED lighting continues to grow,” explains Satoshi Okada, general lighting business planning manager at Nichia Japan. “Nichia has been a pioneer in LED development for human-centric lighting, having already introduced its innovative Vitasolis technology platform in 2019. With over 65 years of research into the production and application of phosphor and LED development, Nichia is actively engaged in making scientific breakthroughs in lighting, improving its quality and our relationship with it.”

Meanwhile, the Zumtobel partnership will also bring Optisolis into the mix. The company announced Optisolis back in 2018, calling it an “ultrahigh-CRI” LED. The component can deliver near 100 levels of color rendering for the aggregate metric and all 16 of the individual color samples. Nichia claims that the LED is tops in the industry for mimicking the spectral power distribution (SPD) of the sun or incandescent sources. The quality of light quickly landed Nichia project wins with Optisolis in several prestigious museum lighting projects.

In the Zumtobel Spectrum, the Optisolis LED both delivers the warm red energy that prepares a human for rest at night while also delivering the renowned light quality. The LED minimizes the energy in the short-wavelength regions. And together, neither of the components emit in the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum whereas some competitors utilize a violet emitter to achieve such an SPD. Nichia say such LEDs can emit small amounts of UV LED energy that could damage museum works of art.

LEDs Magazine chief editor MAURY WRIGHT is an electronics engineer turned technology journalist, who has focused specifically on the LED & Lighting industry for the past decade.

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