LED speed of response

What would be the maximum speed that a bog standard LED can switch on and off at regardless of the transistor used. Would the colour of the LED make a difference (I'm presuming it might).

Thanks.

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shabaz over 2 years ago +1

Hi, It's likely in the tens of MHz, since this Hamamatsu red LED provides operation at 70 MHz: https://www.hamamatsu.com/eu/en/product/light-and-radiation-sources/led/L10762.html LEDs with phosphors…
dougw over 2 years ago +1

LEDs can switch in nanoseconds, but with garden variety circuitry it gets problematic to achieve much more than 1 MHz operation. IR LEDs are generally faster than visible LEDs.

0 shabaz over 2 years ago

Hi,

It's likely in the tens of MHz, since this Hamamatsu red LED provides operation at 70 MHz: https://www.hamamatsu.com/eu/en/product/light-and-radiation-sources/led/L10762.html

LEDs with phosphors (e.g. white LEDs) may have a slower response time. Size of LED and how it's driven (e.g. keeping it on the edge of switching on) may make a difference.

Most standard (visible) LEDs that are for indicator purposes probably won't have a specification for this however, since it's not their normal use-case, so it may need experimentation if you wish to find particularly fast ones for instance.
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0 Deke over 2 years ago in reply to shabaz

Thanks very much for this. It's just general info for an idea...
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0 dougw over 2 years ago

LEDs can switch in nanoseconds, but with garden variety circuitry it gets problematic to achieve much more than 1 MHz operation. IR LEDs are generally faster than visible LEDs.
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