Introduction to Light Emitting Diode Technology and Applications

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In t r o d u c t I o n t o LEds

As you might expect, the purpose of an introductory chapter is

to acquaint readers with the general topic of the book they are

reading. Although this chapter is similar to such chapters in other

books, due to the need to understand the fundamental aspects of

light that are presented in Chapter 2 to appreciate light-emitting

diode (LED) design, we will defer an in-depth description of

LEDs until Chapter 3. In the interim, in this chapter, we will

describe how a basic LED operates, obtain an overview of the

basic technology associated with LEDs, examine how LEDs

can be used in series and parallel circuits, note the use of resis-

tors with LEDs, and understand how to develop circuitry that

operates LEDs. In ...