GE has taken advantage of jet engine technology to produce 1,500 lumens LED bulbs which are half the size and weight of a 600-lumen LED downlight, and this without the thermal problems that come with high-power LEDs. Read on for more details.

Because specializes in jet engines, GE has lots fluidics experts and technologies that allow it to study air flow and cooling. This helped it develop the cooling technology, using jet engine know-how, used in this prototype LED bulb:

GE dual cool jets are very small micro-fluidic bellows type devices that provide high-velocity jets of air, which impinge on the LED heat sink.

Compared with natural convection, these jets of air increase the heat transfer rate to more than ten times. The improved cooling enables LED operation at high drive currents without losses in efficiency or lifetime.

For a given lumen output, the dual cool jets' improved thermal management reduces the necessary LED chip count. This, in turn, can dramatically lower the cost of the lamp.

In addition, this cooling technology enables reductions in LED lamp size and weight.
By solving one problem - cooling - GE has also reduced the number of LEDs required, reduced the size and weight of the bulb, and thus potentially reduced the cost.