New generation illumination engineering-an overview of recent trends in science & technology

The fundamental concepts of illumination engineering are now having a complete makeover and newer capabilities are being discovered with the smart and efficient LED technology. Driven by the global concern of climate change and sustainable resource utilization, researchers are focusing on avenues to optimize the energy consumption in illumination systems through using LEDs, which are about 3 times more energy efficient than conventional light sources. Modern solid state and organic LEDs are developed for delivering homogeneous, controllable and high power illumination for general purposes as well as for various applications like displays, indicators and backlights. State-of-the-art LED based designs providing portability, longevity, energy savings, remote and automatic control features are nowadays becoming very attractive for home, office and public lighting applications. Furthermore, advanced LED research has led to remarkable engineering innovations, like-optical wireless or Li-Fi, intelligent street lamps and foldable TV screens-which are set to capture the technology market by storm. This paper reviews the advent of this era of modern illumination engineering, with focus on new generation LED technologies, integrated optical systems along with their most advanced applications and practical impacts.