Solid-state lighting: 'The case' 10 years after and future prospects

Ten years ago, a white paper titled The Case for a National Research Program on Semiconductor Lighting outlined the promise and potential of semiconductor light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for general illumination. Since then, investments in the now-renamed field of solid-state lighting (SSL) have accelerated and considerable progress has been made, not always in the directions envisioned at the time. In this paper, two of the original four authors comment on the white paper's hits and misses, while making the original white paper available archivally as supplemental online material. Finally, we make new predictions for the coming 10-20 years. (C) 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim