LED light guides are efficient tools, perfect for directing the output of a distant light source to a target point. They are your go-to option for several reasons, perhaps the most compelling being that you need a powerful light source, but have to deal with the constrictions of a tight design envelope. Light-guide-coupled installations also have the edge if you need high radiation output from a freely movable light exit, are aiming for a lightweight design, or have to satisfy strict safety requirements in a controlled environment. In any case, the hallmarks of a good light guide are excellent transmission, high mechanical flexibility, robustness, and reliable performance over a long service life. Primelite’s LED Light Guides tick all these boxes.
LEDs are high-NA light emitters with a broad angular radiation pattern. Efficiency is paramount in setups that pair LEDs with light guides. These light guides have to transmit maximum radiation to the target point. This means the LED source’s NA has to match light guide’s NA. We offer single- and multi-pole liquid light guides perfectly matched to our LED light sources. In our exposure systems, they typically deliver two to three times as much power as conventional silica fiber light guides.
Our Advanced LED Light Engines ALE/1 and ALE/3 use high-transmission LED Light Guides to flexibly deliver the optical system output right to the target spot. With perfectly matching numerical apertures, this combination of our LED light sources and light guides makes for a very efficient overall setup. Besides being very flexible and featuring excellent transmission, our standard LED Light Guides are highly customizable. They can be either single- or multi-pole; in some applications, their length extends up to 20 meters.
Primelite LED Light Guides are designed for continuous throughput of up to 50 watts of optical radiation. Active cores optimized for the near ultraviolet (NUV), visible (VIS), and near infrared (NIR) spectral ranges are available in four cross-sections. Our LED Light Guides’ diameters can range from Ø3.0 to Ø8.0 mm to meet your requirements regarding mechanical configuration setup and transmitted power.
Expect our LED Light Guides to last for several years if you use them with our fiber-coupled LED light sources. With remarkably efficient light coupling and virtually no excess radiation at the light guide entrance, components do not heat up, preventing premature failure.
Be sure to check out our LED Performance Optics. Our LED Light Guides’ numerical output aperture is around 0.6 (α ~ ±35°), so our lens systems are remarkably affordable add-ons to reduce divergence or even focus radiation for maximum intensity. Also, LED Performance Optics are an excellent choice if you want to improve the uniformity of the exposure field, which can be hexagonal or square.
Primelite’s LED Performance Optics exclusively use UV-grade material.
The most outstanding feature of our LED Light Guides is the extreme acceptance angle (NA) for incoming radiation from the light source. Fused silica fiber light guides typically have a NA of 0.3, translating into angles of no more than α ±17.5° for the light they transmit. Every ray coming in with a higher divergence will be rejected and absorbed at the fiber’s light entrance. Ever wondered why silica fiber light guides are promoted as being particularly heat resistant? It is because the rejected radiation creates unwanted heat. In other words, fiber light guides are inefficient. Primelite’s LED Light Guides accept and transmit light with angles of up to ±35° resulting in power delivery that exceeds the capabilities of conventional fiber light guides by a factor of two to three.
It is not only the high NA that makes our LED Light Guides perform way better than comparable solutions. Excellent transmission in dedicated spectral ranges is also essential, peaking at 85% for our most popular NUV active core option.
1Test conditions: Radiation NA 0.6, light guide length 1.5 m, active core Ø6.5 mm
Active core diameter [mm] | 3.0 | 5.0 | 6.5 | 8.0 | |
Single-pole | |||||
Multi-pole | |||||
Minimum bend radius [mm] | 40 | 60 | 80 | 100 | |
Length [m] | Standard: 1.5; custom: 0.5 - 20 | ||||
Operating environment | 5 - 35°C | ||||
Active core options | NUV | VIS | NIR | ||
Spectral range [nm] | 300 - 600 | 400 - 800 | 400 - 2,000 | ||
Numerical aperture | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.5 |