Hi Len,Lenp wrote:And so...if it is absorbed by the emitter I guess it could also be 're-emited', then would that become an '''optical oscillator"A mirror is different because more of the light is reflected, but even in a mirror box the light would be partly absorbed and turned into heat, and the place where it is emitted would most likely end up absorbing more.
LED Heat...
Did you try measuring the LED temperature, with a conventional thermometer? An IR thermometer might get buggy with the LED light.
High output LED's must be heat sinked or they morph into flash bulbs!
Wikipedia says"
"High power light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can use 350 milliwatts or more in a single LED. Most of the electricity in an LED becomes heat rather than light (about 70% heat and 30% light).[1] If this heat is not removed, the LEDs run at high temperatures, which not only lowers their efficiency, but also makes the LED less reliable. Thus, thermal management of high power LEDs is a crucial area of research and development. It is necessary to limit the junction temperature to a value that will guarantee the desired LED lifetime.[2]"
Look up "Laser" and see how that works, that might answer your question.
What i find is that Nature always finds a way of working a supposed problem out so that nothing goes too bonkers, with the exception of a black hole which we still dont know everything about. I have a feeling even that is Nature's solution to some problem such as too much mass in the same localized space.
If something doesnt work at first then there is a meltdown,and that leads to a solution even if we dont like it.
Yeah the high power LEDs do dissipate a lot of heat for the amount of light they can put out. There are some working on solutions that involve incorporating a thermoelectric device right into the LED die so that some of that heat can be converted back into electricity and therefore help to power the LED which would raise the efficacy.
Some of the really amazing things about Nature that are hard to answer come from particle/wave duality. I dont think anyone really knows why this duality of Nature seems to exist. It's like particles exist in a world all their own. Check out quantum entanglement. One seems to know what the other one is doing even though they are separated very far apart. That seems to void the idea that the speed of light is the fastest speed in the Universe. Interestingly, if it is just 'information' then it does not have mass so maybe it does not have to obey the speed limit law. The question then is just what is the mechanism behind that which allows the 'information' to travel or just be there in zero time.
Yeah this might sound a little more serious, but it's interesting to think about these things too.