A method towards simulating the total luminous flux of a monochromatic high power LED operated in a pulsed manner

High power light-emitting diodes (HPLEDs) are frequently being operated in a pulsed manner. The research presented here focuses on the optical, electrical and thermal behaviour of a HPLED under pulse width modulation (PWM), and has the following twofold aim. Firstly, investigating the temperature dependence of the HPLED's efficiency, where it was found that the exact method of operation and the definition of calculation is crucial when making claims. Secondly, we propose a method to simulate the absolute emitted luminous flux of a current driven HPLED under PWM. This is done by making use of experimentally determined characteristic parameters of the HPLED. This has as advantage that no further physical measurements are needed to investigate the HPLEDs behavior under numerous different PWM circumstances. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America