eli5: if a wire burns in a normal bulb, what “burns” inside an LED (what makes the light)?

Question

eli5: if a wire burns in a normal bulb, what “burns” inside an LED (what makes the light)?

In: Physics

Answer 1

This is what i remember from high school. An LED is made up of semi conductors (p-type and n-type). P type semi conductors are electron donors. While N type semi conductors are electron acceptors.

When current is passed through an LED, atoms in the p-type semiconductor get excited and release high energy electrons, which are then accepted by the n-type. The n-type semiconductor half can’t directly accept these excited electrons. They have to drop some of the energy before joining and usually, that energy is emitted as light.

P.S. I don’t know if electron excitation is ELI5 acceptable.