why does a red led take less amps to work?

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

why does a red led take less amps to work?

2

Most of them take the same amount of amps, or milliamps rather: 20mA

Voltage drop on the other hand varies between red, green, and blue. As for why, I can only guess that it has to do with the chemical composition. Maybe someone else has a better idea.

3

My unscientific guess:

Red light has a longer wavelength and thus takes less energy to release the photons; blue has a shorter wavelength, so takes more energy to get them pesky photons out there?

4

Red LEDs were the first visible light LEDs to be mass produced in ancient times. Silicon is not useful for efficient LEDs because the bandgap is indirect.

Direct bandgap semiconductors like GaAsP with Gallium, Arsenic, and Phosphorus allow electron energy quantum transitions without a momentum change.

The red LED has less energy per photon , so it was easier for chemists and dudes to make them. The GaAsP red LED showed the way for later green LEDs with higher energy using a wider bandgap 3-5 semiconductor. Blue LEDs are rare because the bandgap needs to be wider than GaAsP . Silicon has a narrow bandgap so it produces infra red weakly and UV very weakly during hot electron injection caused by avalanche effects.

5

TrailerTrash:
why does a red led take less amps to work?

It doesn't. It takes less volts.

6

And now all kinds of colors are available.
White
Pink
Ultraviolet (UV)
Violet
Blue
Cyan (Aqua)
Green
Yellow
Amber
Orange
Red
RGB

Thru hole LEDs from:
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/through-hole/

7

I got some pink ones a few weeks ago, they're cute...

8

ok, correction: less voltage

thats why my 7 color changer glows bright red when the battery is low. but if i was creating a project and was afraid to kill my battery i would choose red in clear bulb, right?

i found this diagram of wavelength and voltage to share. orange seems like and option too. i dont understand what the X would be in Pink but i bet it eats up your voltage.

9

TrailerTrash:
but if i was creating a project and was afraid to kill my battery i would choose...

Please explain (re-phrase).