An LED (bulb) lights up when it is in a closed circuit with a battery. ‘Because electrons flow in the circuit’. But what is the mechanism that transforms this kinetic energy of electrons into light energy? Should I be asking a different question?
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Visible light is released when an electron loses a ton of energy all at once. In an incandescent bulb, a piece of metal is heated to give all of the electrons a ton of energy. Light is emitted when the electrons lose that energy. It’s a very random process, so incandescent lights produce many different colors, including plenty we can’t see. an LED, there’s a “high energy” side and a “low energy” side, so the only way for an electron to pass through is to lose energy. The LED is designed so that electrons lose a specific amount of energy all at once, producing a specific color of light.
The energy is a mix of kinetic and potential energy. The kinetic energy is more like a vibrating guitar string than a ball bouncing around, since the electrons usually act more like waves than like particles. The potential energy is based on how tightly the negatively-charged electrons and positively-charged protons/nuclei are pulled together.
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