Evaluation of Blue Light for Lighting Environment : Photobiological Safety Standard for Lamps and Lamp Systems, and Problems on the Optical Radiometry(<Special Issue>Psychological / Physiological Effect and Evaluation of Blue Light)

Abstract

The spread of Light Emitting Diode (LED) lamps and LED lamp systems has been promoting. Characteristics of LED are quite different from traditional lamps (i.e. incandescent lamp, fluorescent lamp etc.). Therefore, the requirement of the testing method development for LED lamps and LED lamp systems is increasing in the world wide. The international/regional/national photobiological safety standards for lamps and lamps systems were already published. Especially, European Union set a directive using these standards for guarantee of human photobiological safety. This directive has been valid since September 2009. All lamps and lamp systems sold in EU countries shall be tested using these photobiological safety standards. However, these standards have serious problems on the absolute optical radiometry. No one can make an accurate evaluation of photobiological safety using these safety standards except some evaluation items, some lamps and lamps systems. These problems of safety standards are reported in this paper.