Optical radiation safety requirements for LEDs according to their new status in between laser and lamp safety standards

Abstract

The international laser safety standard IEC 60825-1 is currently under revision. Since 1993, the scope of this standard was also extended to LEDs. In terms of these optoelectronic devices, the new revision will provide the following innovations:LEDs will be deleted from the scope of the laser safety standard, and the optical radiation hazard should be assessed with the recently adopted safety standard IEC 62471 for lamps and lamp systems. However, this removal from the base standard in general does not preclude other application-related standards of the 60825-series from including LEDs whenever they refer to lasers. This is currently valid for “parts 2 and 12” which provide application-specific requirements for wireline and wireless communication techniques. This means, that in particular IR-LEDs used for free-room communication such as remote control have further-on to be assessed as lasers whereas the same IR-LED when used as a light barrier would have to be assessed as an incoherent lamp.Another innovation with the revised standard relates to the measurement conditions. These conditions were substantially modified with implications especially for extended sources such as LEDs.The new situation for LED-users and manufacturers will be explained and the impact of all these changes will be discussed.The international laser safety standard IEC 60825-1 is currently under revision. Since 1993, the scope of this standard was also extended to LEDs. In terms of these optoelectronic devices, the new revision will provide the following innovations:LEDs will be deleted from the scope of the laser safety standard, and the optical radiation hazard should be assessed with the recently adopted safety standard IEC 62471 for lamps and lamp systems. However, this removal from the base standard in general does not preclude other application-related standards of the 60825-series from including LEDs whenever they refer to lasers. This is currently valid for “parts 2 and 12” which provide application-specific requirements for wireline and wireless communication techniques. This means, that in particular IR-LEDs used for free-room communication such as remote control have further-on to be assessed as lasers whereas the same IR-LED when used as a light barrier would have to be assessed as an incoherent lamp.Another innova...