YELLOW SiC FROM THE LATE-1960s
FROM THE U.S.S.R.

 Last updated 09-14-2020

These amazing pictures and spectrographic analyses show a very rare yellow-emitting SiC LED from Russia -- then known as the USSR.
This is part # KL101V.

Advertised specs are:
Forward Current: 10mA
Forward Voltage: 5.5V
Brightness not less than 20cd/m2



Vintage LED Vintage LED

Vintage LED
Size as compared with a modern (2020) 5mm (T1¾) through-hole LED.


Spectrographic analysis
Spectrographic analysis of this LED from its side (the LED's intensity is too low to perform spectroscopy from the LED's "top").


Spectrographic analysis
Spectrographic analysis of this LED from its side; spectrometer's response narrowed to a band between 555nm and 575nm to pinpoint emission peak wavelength, which has two closely-spaced peaks at 563.140nm and 566.870nm.

The raw spectrometer data (tab-delimited that can be loaded into Excel) is at rsic1.txt

USB2000 Spectrometer graciously donated by P.L.




Manufactured sometime between 1968 and 1970, this greenish-yellow LED gets its light from a chip of silicon carbide, a material most of you know as an abrasive substance used for sandpaper! Although fluorescence in SiC was discovered by Henry Joseph Round as early as 1907, this is the first known practical application for that ghostly greenish glow.

The LED's light output (from its normal "this side up" orientation) is only 10 µcd (that's ten microcandelas).

It came in two versions: a tiny pinhead-sized glass encapulated version like this for commercial use, and another in a sturdy metal can for military use.

I found (and purchased) these on Ebay in early-August 2020, and they were received at 1:04pm PDT on 09-12-20.




Do you manufacture or sell an LED flashlight, task light, utility light, or module of some kind? Want to see it tested by a real person, under real working conditions? Do you then want to see how your light did? If you have a sample available for this type of real-world, real-time testing, please contact me at bdf1111@yahoo.com.

Please visit this web page for contact information.

Unsolicited flashlights, LEDs, and other products appearing in the mail are welcome, and it will automatically be assumed that you sent it in order to have it tested and evaluated for this site.
Be sure to include contact info or your company website's URL so visitors here will know where to purchase your product. 






This page is a frame from a website.
If you arrived on this page through an outside link,you can get the "full meal deal" by clicking here.