Product Review

Soraa: New LED Technology With Improved Color Quality

Why is Soraa different?

Almost all mass-produced LED lamps are made by depositing gallium nitride (GaN) onto a sapphire or silicon carbide substrate, but “there is a fundamental mismatch between the deposited layer and the substrate,” according to Clifton Lemon, marketing manager at Soraa. In other words, the inherent dissimilarity in those materials is a weak link that limits their performance, particularly when the LED chip becomes stressed under the high heat conditions in luminaires.

Soraa, on the other hand, uses GaN applied to a GaN substrate, a technology developed by Shuji Nakamura, the same physicist who invented the industry standard blue LED (more on this later). “GaN on GaN allows ten times more light through, so Soraa can get greater power density and create super-bright, super-small LEDs compared to earlier technology,” Lemon contends. And because the two layers are the same material, there are fewer defects, allowing the LEDs to operate at high temperatures. “If you put too much current through most LEDs, they just fail,” claimed Lemon, “but our LEDs can work up to 120°F, so we can work in closed fixtures. No other LEDs can do that.”

Published September 30, 2013

Ehrlich, B. (2013, September 30). Soraa: New LED Technology With Improved Color Quality. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/product-review/soraa-new-led-technology-improved-color-quality