Uniform Energy
You may see or hear us talk a lot about uniform energy or why it is so important. We thought we would break it down so it is easy to understand.
The benefits of uniform energy and why we incorporated it into our panel is very simple it is better for your skin and gives better results.
To understand uniform energy and how it is achieved you need to understand a few things such as the ways in which LEDs are constructed and how that can affect treatment distances and the energy absorbed.
We will will be talking about single color leds in this article, head over to our article on The Different types of LEDs to learn why single wavelength leds are best.
What is an LED?
Well LED stands for Light Emitting Diode, and a Diode is just a fancy way of describing a piece of wire with a section that usually only lets current flow in one direction. With LEDs it is a small piece of plastic, or epoxy resin that encompases an electroluminescent semiconductor material chip that produces light once an electrical charge passes through it.
Focused LEDs
Most LEDs include a reflective lens much like a standard flashlight to direct the light outward in a single direction. We will call these LEDs with focusing lenses, “Focused LEDs”.
These LEDs are very good at focusing the light from the LED and directing them in a narrow path out a distance from the LED. They tend to be a bit bulkier and provide some restrictions in construction. These types of LEDs require a hard circuit board or another surface to mount to, and due to them having a focusing lens they need to have more space between the LEDs. This is not ideal for skincare, unfortunately, most if not all skincare products on the market are built with this LED tech.
Unfocused LEDs
Well, it’s only the logical progression in this article that we would talk about unfocused LEDs or LEDs without a focusing lens and their benefits. We have chosen to incorporate LEDs without focusing lenses into the IlluminateLED family of products, because of their ability to provide uniform energy through our unique manufacturing process. The reason we are able to achieve this is that we are able to produce LED panels with very closely placed LEDs that overlap their output energy and create a “wall of light” that gets delivered to the treatment area.
LED Spacing
As we mentioned before the spacing of LEDs is very important in delivering effective treatments for skincare. This is why we place our LEDs so close together, while others, unfortunately, space theirs too far out. This can be due to bad design or lack of knowledge behind the science and engineering of effective skincare products.
As you can see many LED products try to make their devices a multi use device and unfortunately it limits their effectiveness significantly here is the same panel with only Red LEDs.
The spacing of the LEDs is quite far apart compared to our Illuminate Panel, this is mainly due to them using LEDs with a focusing lens and that they are trying to incorporate other functions into their device, resulting in a cumbersome and expanded wiring arrangement.
The Illuminate LED Panel has very tightly arranged LEDs, this is because the Illuminate Panel uses unfocused LEDs and produces a uniform wall of overlapping light on the treatment area.
Leopard Spotting Effect
The leopard spotting effect is difficult to understand or visualize but the best way to describe it is this with focused LEDs you lack full exposure to an LED light that is powerful enough to penetrate into the skin in an even manner. It is as if you put sunscreen on using a cue tip, and went out in the sun. You would only be protected in those spots you dabbed with sunscreen much like how only the area of the skin receiving effective LED light is those specific spots directly out from the LED. The leopard spotting effect primarily only affects focused LEDs or LEDs who are too far spaced apart.
As you can see the Illuminate does not produce gaps in its optical power and due to the overlapping effect of the LEDs the optical power is actually increased and maintained over a uniform distance from the LED.
Treatment Distance
Most LED devices need to be within 3 inches of the skin for effective penetration during red light therapy. Unfortunately, many devices are underpowered and in combination with non uniform energy from their device most devices aren’t effective unless they are held up to or within an inch of the skin. Fortunately due to the uniform energy produced by the IlluminateLED the minimum effective distance from the skin for maximum penetration into the dermis is 3 – 4 Inches.
To see how effective your device is without having expensive tools or equipment try placing a piece of paper over your device as shown above on the right and slowly raise it up to reveal how the effective range diminishes and see the leopard spotting effect of your device. Try this test with an Illuminate LED Panel and you will see the uniform wall of light produced, you can also see how the only time you get “leopard spotting” is when you are less than 1 millimeter away from our panel. This is one of the reasons why Illuminate LED is the most effective device on the market.