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Here are the best microphotos I can get right now of the light-emitting diode (LED) inside an energy-efficient LED Christmas light. You can see that the electronics inside are different than the glowing tungsten filament in a standard incandescent mini Christmas light, which we've looked at before.
LEDs work differently than incandescent lights, use far less energy, and generate far less heat. To get these photos, I actually had to shoot many frames because of the way LEDs work. They strobe very fast, blinking on and off many times a second. This aspect of their function meant that about half the photos I took of the diode came out completely black.
I also found it interesting that the blue diode appeared to have two attaching wires at the top as opposed to the single lead on the orange diode above. While I don't know why they are different in this way, I do know that there are differences in the ways different colored diodes function. Getting the right light frequency is apparently part art and part science.
Another LED tidbit is that white LED lights are actually not white. Rather, they are made from one of the other LED colors tuned to a very desaturated color within its frequency.
I'm gonna say I'm about 98% right on that bit of cocktail party knowledge. It's knowledge for a geek cocktail party, but a cocktail party nonetheless.
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Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.
