Lumileds Tunes Up Horticulture LEDs

Lumileds has introduced Far Red, Deep Red and CoB offerings to its Luxeon SunPlus Series of LEDs for horticulture lighting. Luxeon SunPlus Series are claimed to be the only line of LEDs on the market to be tested and binned by photosynthetic photon flux (PPF). The portfolio of colours enables wavelength tuning for maximum crop yield in both greenhouse and vertical farming applications.

The addition to the Luxeon SunPlus 35 Line of Far Red and Deep Red will enable designers of vertical farm and interweaving fixtures to tune the spectrum specifically for the crop being grown. The new Luxeon SunPlus CoB Line, available in Purple, is designed for greenhouse applications where attaining high PPF and fast time to market are top priorities.

The Luxeon SunPlus 35 Line is optimised for vertical farming in shallow tiers so uniformity is optimised at very short distances. The Deep Red (650-670 nm) and Far Red (720-740 nm) wavelengths join the existing Royal Blue (445-455 nm), Lime (broad spectrum) and three shades of Purple with varying contributions of blue (2.5 percent, 12.5 percent and 25 percent) in a 3.5 x 3.5 mm format.

“These essential red wavelengths are combined with blue to give the exact spectra needed for each crop. Our Horticulture Lighting Calculator is especially helpful in this context because lighting manufacturers can experiment with LED ratios and spectral power distributions before building the fixtures,” said Jennifer Holland, product line director of the Luxeon SunPlus Series.

Customer success and market adoption of the Luxeon SunPlus 35 Purple and the need for even greater PPF in a single device led to the development of the Luxeon SunPlus CoB Purple (12.5 percent blue) product. In contrast to vertical farming where lighting is positioned a short distance from plants, greenhouse lighting requires deep penetration into the plant canopy, which is achieved with a directional CoB.

The CoB portfolio complements the Luxeon SunPlus 20 and 35 Lines, which offer a variety of colours to optimise the spectrum for greenhouse applications. The CoB form factor also means that standard optics, holders and drivers are available to help manufacturers accelerate time to market of their fixtures.

“The chip on board approach allows us to maximise PPF to as high as 350 µmol/s from a single source,” said Holland. The Luxeon SunPlus CoB Purple is available with 15, 19 and 32mm light emitting surfaces.