News & Updates
January 2021
Ground-breaking optics debut in £330 million art gallery
INNOVATIVE lighting optics developed by technologists in the US are being used for the first time in new £330 million (US$450 million) art gallery.
QuarkStar’s radical Edge-X technology has been specified by top lighting design practice L’Observatoire for the newly opened Kinder Building, centrepiece of a massive expansion to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The expansion was the largest fine art gallery project in North America in 2020, designed by US ‘starchitect’ Steven Holl ... [ View PDF ] [ Read on Lux's site ] |
January 2021
The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building
The architect Steven Holl thinks of "sculpting space with light”. QuarkStar’s Edge-X technology allows one to sculpt light itself in space. "Designed by Steven Holl Architects especially for the display of the important and rapidly growing MFAH collections of 20th and 21st-century art, to which it dedicates more than 100,000 square feet of gallery space, the Kinder Building is the final component in the museum’s eight-year $450 million project to expand and enhance its Susan and Fayez S. Sarofim Campus in the heart of Houston, the largest fine arts building development project of its time in North America."
Read about how QuarkStar's Q-Wall asymmetric linear wall wash luminaires help to enable a museum and architect's vision of light as an architectural material starting page 17 ... [ Read the article ] |
January 2021
Q-Wall’s diminutive size and best-in-class light distribution means curators can easily display art of multiple sizes and shapes throughout the galleries without worrying about hot spots or dark spots, while visitors are able to appreciate the collections from multiple viewpoints without distracting shadows or discomfort glare.
© Richard Barnes |
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
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January 2021
QuarkStar patents hit 500 applications globally with over 250 core technology patents granted to date in the US, EU, China, and Japan2020 granted patents of a fundamental nature include
– Specific optics required for the 2020 MFAH museum project – Automotive applications: for headlights & in-cabin shaped lighting – New approaches to color control, maintainence, and enhancing CRI – Foundational & evolutionary approaches to LED filament ('Edison') bulbs |
February 2020
QuarkStar presents the
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December 2019
Materials and footprint options multiply in LED optics
SSL remains a multidisciplinary development effort and optics can be as important as LEDs in delivering quality of light. MAURY WRIGHT surveys some of the latest LED-centric optics options for general lighting and specialty applications.
QuarkStar Edge-X by Maury Wright At the end of the day, optics in SSL applications serve the primary task of controlling beam distribution. Our final company in this article takes that task to a new level. QuarkStar is a late-stage startup company with a business plan focused on licensing optics technology to luminaire makers. The company, however, has developed some compelling demonstration optics, especially Edge-X for general illumination applications. The Edge-X optics combine light guide functionality that serves as a way for photons to travel from an LED light engine to the edge of the optic, where the company’s patented technology then forms the desired beam pattern delivering light just where it is needed. The nearby image shows the transparent planar light guide between the light engine and the beam-forming edge optics. Feilo Sylvania became the first SSL manufacturer to license the QuarkStar technology earlier this year. [ Read on LEDs Magazine ] |
March 2019
Lux: La revue de l'eclairage
(France)
Light and Innovation
The new entrants who are transforming lighting Will lighting be taking a new course? The arrival of the LED and digital lighting, which are completely redesigning our approach to lighting, is an obvious step in the revolution occurring in this sector. And the power of electronics, coupled with the creative human imagination, keeps pushing back the limits of the possible with completely new solutions - some of which are akin to technological breakthroughs. Indeed, some of the solutions presented in this selection completely change the conceptual approach to lighting or the infrastructure of lighting like, for example, a direct/indirect light downlight (QuarkStar), street lighting powered by kinetic energy (Engoplanet), an infrastructure for interior lighting that is free of drivers (Illuma-Drive). Designed by actors (many of whom do not come from the lighting sector) who think about light in new ways, these innovations compete with established ways of doing things via a common idea: to improve offerings by reducing energy consumption and environmental footprint. And technology has obviously not reached its limits: from start-ups to global electronics and communication giants, and including the more legacy industrial companies, many are interested in the potential of digital light and are investing in it. |
QUARKSTAR: NEW GENERATION DISTRIBUTIONS
Holder of numerous patents, winner of many awards, the American start-up QuarkStar has completely rethought LED lighting in order to surpass current performances at all levels. Their technology Edge-X technology, notably seen at Light + Building 2018, revolutionizes light distribution, using refraction rather than reflection, opening the way to designs that were up to now unimaginable, like this semi-recessed downlight to direct / indirect lighting. |
March 2019
FEILO Sylvania has licensed a ground-breaking lens technology which it plans to include in its next generation luminaires
The company has signed a deal to get access to the radical Edge-X technology from innovative US start-up QuarkStar.
It’s understood the company will initially use the ‘light shaping’ lens development in its downlight and linear lighting ranges under the Concord brand.
The Edge-X optics essentially guide the output from LEDs and sculpt the distribution of light in a space. One of the benefits to clients is that fewer luminaires are needed in a space to get the same effect as traditional optics.
‘Seeing the capability of Edge-X optics was a significant moment for us,’ Sylvania’s technology chief Richard Turner told Lux. ‘We knew immediately that incorporating the optical technology into our product lines would be a major win. This was confirmed by our jointly winning Lux’s Top 20 Innovations Award at the 2018 Light + Building for the first major revolutionary advance in downlights in 75 years.’
‘Sylvania’s ability to incorporate the Edge-X technology into a full product line will enable it to significantly increase its position in the market,’ QuarkStar Louis Lerman told Lux. ‘This agreement brings together QuarkStar’s globally patented, award-winning technologies with the power and presence of the Sylvania brand.
‘QuarkStar’s unique combination of novel functions and radically new designs will provide significant market differentiation across multiple product families.’
[ Read on LuxReview.com ]
It’s understood the company will initially use the ‘light shaping’ lens development in its downlight and linear lighting ranges under the Concord brand.
The Edge-X optics essentially guide the output from LEDs and sculpt the distribution of light in a space. One of the benefits to clients is that fewer luminaires are needed in a space to get the same effect as traditional optics.
‘Seeing the capability of Edge-X optics was a significant moment for us,’ Sylvania’s technology chief Richard Turner told Lux. ‘We knew immediately that incorporating the optical technology into our product lines would be a major win. This was confirmed by our jointly winning Lux’s Top 20 Innovations Award at the 2018 Light + Building for the first major revolutionary advance in downlights in 75 years.’
‘Sylvania’s ability to incorporate the Edge-X technology into a full product line will enable it to significantly increase its position in the market,’ QuarkStar Louis Lerman told Lux. ‘This agreement brings together QuarkStar’s globally patented, award-winning technologies with the power and presence of the Sylvania brand.
‘QuarkStar’s unique combination of novel functions and radically new designs will provide significant market differentiation across multiple product families.’
[ Read on LuxReview.com ]
March 2019
QuarkStar reinvents the downlight,
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March 2019
QuarkStar CTO Eric Bretschneider presents a Grand Unified Theory of SSL reliability and predictive measurementsChasing the Rainbow - Developing a Single Predictive Model for LED Metrics
Presented at the 2019 Strategies in Light conference by Dr. Eric Bretschneider, QuarkStar CTO Chair of the IES Solid-State Lighting Subcommittee Watch recorded presentation >> Download PowerPoint show >> |
March 2019
QuarkStar presents two keynote talks at Strategies in Light 2019As a team composed of industry experts with decades of collective experience in the SSL industry as well as Silicon Valley entrepreneurial know-how, QuarkStar is uniquely positioned to provide perspectives on the development of the LED lighting industry and where its future is leading.
20 Years of Strategies in Light: Reflections on the Evolution of the LED Industry presented by Dr. Robert Steele, QuarkStar's chief market analyst and founder and co-chair of Strategies in Light (presentation upload coming soon) "From Black Death to White Light": The LED Revolution That Almost Didn't Happen Presented by: Dr. Eric Bretschneider, CTO QuarkStar Chair of the IES Solid-State Lighting Subcommittee (presentation upload coming soon) |
February 2019
QuarkStar's solution of the unsolved major problem of color shift prediction contributes to new industry standards from LEDS Magazine (Carrie Meadows):
Predicting Chromaticity Shift in LEDs and SSL Products " ... [QuarkStar's model] has the potential to change how the solid-state lighting (SSL) industry utilizes test and measurement guidance, and effectively end the notion that the lumen is the only light characteristic that matters with regard to LED lifetime performance." Watch webcast (To skip registration, use this email: QS_color_shift_control@quarkstar.com) This webcast will provide an overview of how the SSL design process can be enhanced by predicting chromaticity shift. Product developers and lighting specifiers will learn how such a data-driven method might be employed to help them choose products carefully and to confidently deploy SSL technology in color-critical applications. Presented by: Dr. Eric Bretschneider, CTO QuarkStar Chair of the IES Solid-State Lighting Subcommittee |