Dr. Bill Dennis is hosting Dr. Uwe Happek of the University of Georgia Department of Physics and Astronomy. His talk is entitled "Luminescent Material for Energy Efficient Lighting."

Lighting consumes about 8% of the primary energy in the United States, and 20% of the generated electricity. While financial considerations, dependence on foreign energy sources, and the limited availability of fossil fuel has been an incentive for energy efficient lighting for several decades, the threat of global warming has provided an additional urgency to the development of efficient light sources.

In my talk I will first introduce several relevant parameters that are needed for the evaluation and comparison of light sources, followed by an overview of different approaches towards energy efficient lighting, including a discussion of the physical limits of lamp efficiency.

The second part of the talk will focus on the research on phosphor coatings for solid state lighting, quantum cutting phosphors, and intriguing solid state problems that one might encounter during these studies.