A flashlight (also called an electric torch or torch) is a portable electric spotlight which emits light from a small incandescent lightbulb, or from one or more light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The light source is mounted in a housing which contains a parabolic reflector, a clear protective lens, a power source (typically electric batteries), and an electric power switch.
Recently, flashlights which use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of conventional lightbulbs have become available. LEDs have existed for decades, mainly as low-power indicator lights. In 1999, Lumileds Corporation of San Jose, CA, introduced the Luxeon LED, a high-power white-light emitter. For the first time this made possible LED flashlights with power and running time better than some incandescent lights.
LEDs can be significantly more efficient at lower power levels, hence use less battery energy than normal lightbulbs. Such flashlights have longer battery lifetimes, in some cases hundreds of hours, although the LED efficiency advantage diminishes at higher power levels. LEDs also survive sharp blows that often break conventional lightbulbs.
The Brightest LED flashlights are often electronically regulated to maintain constant light output as the batteries fade. By contrast a non-regulated flashlight becomes progressively dimmer, sometimes spending much of the total running time below 50 percent brightness level.
A common misconception about LED-based flashlights is that they generate no heat. While lower power LED flashlights generate little heat, more powerful LED lights do generate significant amounts of heat – although not as radiant energy – as the semiconductor junction inherently dissipates heat. For this reason keychain higher-powered LED flashlights usually have aluminum bodies and can become quite warm during use. The use of aluminum is largely due to its thermal properties, acting as a heatsink for the high-power LED.
