Understanding LED Illumination, M. Nisa Khan, CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, 2013. $69.95 (272 pp.). ISBN 978-1-4665-0772-2
Many publications about LED lighting are highly focused on the physics of the light source, but precious few actually take a laboratory-to-marketplace perspective and examine how scientific innovations in LED technology relate to the engineering world and the practice of lighting. Understanding LED Illumination is one of those rare resources that address the engineering of LED lighting as well as the challenges and opportunities faced by lighting designers working in a rapidly evolving marketplace. Author Nisa Khan’s concise and unique perspective brings together key issues related to both the evolution and practice of next-generation lighting.
Khan, an independent R&D consultant, has an extensive background in solid-state lighting technology. She also has a profound understanding of the SSL industry and the technology’s commercial applications. Her impressive research experience includes work at Bell Labs followed by a career that focused on solid-state technology development.
Understanding LED Illumination begins with a concise introduction to lighting metrics and design. It quickly introduces the technologies involved and the basic science behind LED lighting, and it offers a brief analysis of the current and future prospects of the LED industry. After that, it progresses nicely into devices and the materials and production issues associated with them. Khan then weaves that information into applications, introducing lighting design and the process of moving from conventional or “legacy” lighting to SSL.
Lighting designers and engineers will find the significant amount of material on measurements and related processes quite useful. The author includes a detailed discussion of LED photometrics, including the color rendering index (CRI) and other established standards for measuring color characteristics; with the advent of SSL, that topic is one of current industry debate. I was particularly impressed with the author’s ability to explain some of the nuances of LED technology in a straightforward manner that will be easily understood by those newly acquainted with the industry.
Understanding LED Illumination would make an excellent textbook for teaching illumination engineering, architectural engineering, and other subjects related to next-generation lighting. The monograph is extremely well organized and its tables, charts, diagrams, and photographs effectively reinforce the concepts described by the text. It can also serve as a ready reference for those involved in the design, engineering, and marketing of SSL. I recommend it to anyone interested in SSL lighting, including, in particular, my lighting design students and the industry partners I work with as director of the California Lighting Technology Center at the University of California, Davis. I also commend the book to the fast-growing cadre of technicians and engineers entering the SSL marketplace. Many of them are coming from peripheral or distant fields and could use this type of concise yet technically rich material.
I have only a couple of criticisms for Khan’s otherwise excellent work. I would have liked to see the illustrations complemented by case studies of actual lighting retrofits or installations for various applications. I also would have liked to see more of the photos and diagrams enhanced with color, particularly given the subject material. The investment in more colorful graphics would be returned with an even more broadly appealing book.
Michael Siminovitch is the Rosenfeld Chair in Energy Efficiency at the University of California, Davis, and director of UC Davis’s California Lighting Technology Center, a public–private partnership dedicated to advancing energy-efficient lighting and daylighting technologies.
