Investigation on Circadian Action and Color Quality in Laser-Based Illuminant for General Lighting and Display

Abstract

In this work, the genetic algorithm is employed to optimize both circadian action factor (CAF) and color quality of laser-based illuminants (LBIs) with three, four, and five spectral bands to disclose its possible use in two common white lighting applications, i.e. bedroom lighting and office lighting. Comparing all LBIs at a correlated color temperature (CCT) of 3000 K and a color rendering index of 80, the CAF of four-band LBIs reaches a minimum of 0.238 and maintains at a possibly highest luminous efficacy of radiation (LER) of 422 lm/W among all cases. The performances of white LBIs are also compared with those of white light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The results demonstrate that, under the same conditions of color rendering and color temperature, both four-band LBIs and four-band LEDs exhibit the largest circadian tunability of about 4.7, while four-band LBIs possess much higher LER at the same time compared with four-band LEDs. In addition, for the display application, the investigation on the optimal circadian tunability as a function of color gamut at two CCTs (3000 K and 6500 K) is also performed. We believe that this study can serve as a useful guidance for the application of LBIs in both the healthy general lighting and display.