Luminous efficacy is a measure of how well a light source produces visible light. It is the ratio of luminous flux to power. Depending on context, the power can be either the radiant flux of the source's output, or it can be the total power (electric power, chemical energy, or others) consumed by the source. Which sense of the term is intended must usually be inferred from the context, and is sometimes unclear. The former sense is sometimes called luminous efficacy of radiation, and the latter luminous efficacy of a source.
The luminous efficacy of a source is a measure of the efficiency with which the source provides visible light from electricity. The luminous efficacy of radiation describes how well a given quantity of electromagnetic radiation from a source produces visible light: the ratio of luminous flux to radiant flux. Not all wavelengths of light are equally visible, or equally effective at stimulating human vision, due to the spectral sensitivity of the human eye; radiation in the infrared and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum is useless for illumination. The overall luminous efficacy of a source is the product of how well it converts energy to electromagnetic radiation, and how well the emitted radiation is detected by the human eye.
Read more about Luminous Efficacy: Efficacy and Efficiency, Lighting Efficiency, SI Photometry Units
Famous quotes containing the words luminous and/or efficacy:
“let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
“For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon’s teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)