Multi-physics and multi-disciplinary analysis for solid state lighting

This paper presents the current progress in the development of a design environment for solid state lighting that aims to provide engineers with the tools to assess thermal, mechanical, and optical performance of a solid state lighting system. When coupled with human vision models, this design environment will help ensure the reliability and viewability requirements of solid lighting devices. For demonstration purpose, optical simulations of a Light Emitting Diode (LED) backlight unit for display was carried out using ray tracing calculations and the output from the simulations was coupled to the human vision model, i.e. the Just Noticeable Difference (JND) method, so that the impact of the backlight on the readability of the display can be analyzed. The junction temperature of the LED in this backlight design was predicted using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and the model was also used to predict the key parameters in designing the LED backlight unit.