-New OSLON® Optimal Red enables broader spectral coverage for better growth of common plant types that are grown under artificial lighting -OSLON® Optimal Red can address growers’ problems with fungus, bacteria and bleaching -OSLON® Optimal Red offers outstanding efficacy and robust performance in demanding greenhouse and indoor farming applications

ams OSRAM (SIX: AMS), a global leader in optical solutions, has extended its OSLON® Optimal family of horticultural lighting LEDs with a new 640 nm Red LED, which enables indoor farmers to produce faster and healthier plant growth.

Providing broader coverage of the red portion of the spectrum, the new 640 nm Red LED joins the 660 nm Hyper Red and 730 nm Far Red in the OSLON® Optimal family, which also includes a 450 nm Deep Blue LED and a horti white LED.

It has been common practice in horticulture to illuminate crops with a mix of 660 nm, 450 nm and 730 nm, or 660 nm and white LEDs for plants that require full-spectrum light. Initial research conducted by Wageningen University on behalf of ams OSRAM shows that a double red peak (640 nm and 660 nm) in combination with horti white increases the dried biomass level in indoor growing environments.

In addition, the use of the OSLON® Optimal Red helps prevent photo bleaching in some plant varieties. Experience shows that it can also prevent the incidence of fungal and bacterial infection in leafy greens such as basil.

The new OSLON® Optimal Red product can play an important part in raising energy efficiency and reducing the cost of electric power in all horticultural lighting applications, including greenhouse toplighting and interlighting, and vertical farming. Producing 3.53 µmol/J, it achieves very high wall plug efficiency of 66.3 %. The LED's radiant flux is 485 mW, and photon flux is 2.58 µmol/s. Peak wavelength is 640 nm and the dominant wavelength is 630 nm.

Thomas Grebner, Marketing Manager at ams OSRAM, said: ‘The discovery of new recipes that include a double red peak of Hyper Red and Red is helping growers produce more biomass and maintain superior plant health. With the introduction of the OSLON® Optimal Red LED, horticultural lighting equipment manufacturers can achieve very high levels of efficiency and reliability.'

Robust ceramic package for high reliability

The OSLON® Optimal LEDs are high-power ceramic packages based on a 1 mm² die and a standard 3030 footprint with a Lambertian emission profile. The OSLON® Optimal portfolio of products, based on the latest ams OSRAM 1 mm2 chip technology, provide very stable light output over a wide temperature range, as well as very low thermal resistance and long lifetime.

The new Red product is suitable for horticultural purposes as well as for use in general lighting applications such as architainment and signal lighting.

The OSLON® Optimal Red LED can be ordered now in production volumes using the part number GR CSSRML.24.