The international technology group SCHOTT has developed a new ring-shaped high brightness LED. The Solidur™ Ring LED is the world’s first ring-shaped autoclavable light source, performing efficiently over a long period of time. It is designed for applications in dental and medical lighting, especially for devices that need autoclaving.
Typical applications include endoscopes, otoscopes, as well as surgical equipment. Its ring design enables shadow-free illumination of the area of interest. Owing to its fully vacuum-tight housing based on inorganic, non-aging materials, the LED is extremely robust, resistant to chemicals, corrosion, and pressure—even at varying temperatures. With the Ring LED, SCHOTT is introducing the second product platform as well as the new trade name Solidur™ for its autoclavable and highly durable LED product line. SCHOTT will unveil its innovation March 10-14, 2015 at IDS trade show in Cologne (Hall 11.3 booth B081).
Thanks to a gas-tight housing made of purely inorganic, non-aging materials, LEDs from SCHOTT are especially robust and successfully withstand temperature changes, chemicals, corrosion, and pressure. Image: SCHOTT
With the sterilizable Solidur™ Ring LED, medical engineers can design the device with the light source directly at the tip of the instrument. As a result, doctors can bring the light source close to the patient and significantly increase the illumination of a difficult-to-reach area during surgical operations or medical checkups. At the same time, the ring-shaped design prevents shadows from disturbing the view.
“The Ring LED may even allow the device designer to develop stand-alone devices by integrating light sources and its energy supply, e.g. a battery, into the instrument. This simplifies the entire system, makes it more robust, and could even eliminate the need for cables. Self-sufficient instrument designs create moving space for doctors during operations and ease overall handling of the device,” explains Dr. Frank Gindele, Head of R&D for LED products at SCHOTT Electronic Packaging.
The Ring LED is the first fully autoclavable ring-shaped light source available today. The use of inorganic materials in the product setup allows for much better heat management and leads to a substantially longer lifetime when compared to other available products. The Ring LED has been tested to withstand more than 3.500 autoclaving cycles.
SCHOTT offers the new Ring LED in accordance with customer requirements in different color temperatures, light colors, radiation profiles, and optical properties, such as luminous flux.
130 years of history in the area of special purpose glass and more than 70 years of experience in manufacturing hermetic seals and feedthroughs flow into the development and production of new products at SCHOTT Electronic Packaging.
For more information: http://www.schott.com/epackaging/english/autoclavable_and_hermetic_leds.html