solid-state lighting (ssl)

Interesting article to read while we wait for the IVR slow train.


Dr. Jeffrey Lewis ([email protected])

Industrial demand for silver is going nowhere but up. And understanding the role silver plays in the manufacture of so many of the products we take for granted is an important part of understanding its true value.

Last time, we looked at how silver is used to create very small, powerful batteries. Compact, long-lasting, eco-friendly silver zinc batteries are used in many of the smart phones, laptops, and tablets we rely on every day. Given our collective obsession with the newest, most powerful and smallest gadgets, silver consumption in this area is expected to increase dramatically in the coming years.

Next, let's delve into another silver application that shows amazing potential for growth: solid-state lighting.

Solid-state lighting (SSL) uses semiconductors to produce light with either light emitting diodes (LED) or organic light emitting diodes (OLED), both of which produce electroluminescent light when a current is passed through electrodes. Those electrodes can be made of silver.

SSL has a number of advantages. Most notably, it delivers more light for far less energy than incandescent or fluorescent light bulbs.

SSL is already used in traffic lights, car headlights and a few other products. In the near future, however, it's expected to be used widely in high-performance products like TVs and computer monitors. SSL will also get a boost as inefficient incandescent bulbs are phased out in the US, Europe and other areas, which is expected to begin around 2012.

And, taking it one step further, research indicates that if more high-quality, energy-efficient lighting were available, consumers would take advantage of the opportunity to make their homes and businesses brighter, dramatically increasing demand for technologies like SSL.

The silver used for SSL is in the form of a thin film or layer of paste, which is created from silver flakes or powder, refined from silver bars. This is similar to the way silver is used in radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. While only a small amount of silver is required to produce a single lighting element, the potential explosion of this technology (just like RFID) could lead to a cumulative increase in silver consumption that would impact overall demand in a very noticeable way.

Right now, SSL accounts for only 10 percent of the total lighting market. By 2015, however, its market share is projected to climb to 30 percent. Assuming that silver is ultimately determined to be the best type of electrode, annual consumption for use in SSL could increase from fewer than 1 million ounces (Moz) now to over 5 Moz in the next five years.

There are alternatives for silver in SSL, but they currently present problems such as uneven lighting and dimming difficulties. And because a very small amount of silver provides a very large amount of illumination, the use of silver allows manufacturers to produce smaller products. Ultimately, it seems as though silver is going to be "the chosen one" for this application.

And what happens to this and many other industries if (when) silver is found to be in short supply?

It's truly astonishing that so few people seem to get it...