I tend to think of it as royal blue die
@100% efficiency has x photons or 3.72 umol/j. This happens outside of phosphor conversion. I guess my question is if we start with a maximum of 3.72 umol of royal blue photons can the phosphor conversion ever yield a higher umol count than what we started with. I'm thinking no.
Physics say and show the opposite. Yes.
And again...why you need look take QER separately from efficiency.
You keep lapping separate questions on top of each other.
QER is just a distribution of mW just as lumens is...just shifting water to different sides of the tub...but the tub still has the same amount of water. It is all dependant on the radiant watts and a conversion...i.e. mW and LER.
Let's simplify...
100% blue(also know as 1 radiant watt output per 1watt of input) will max out at 3.72µmols/j...
100% ~660 red will produce 5.5µmol...or per radiant watt.
Both achieved with a radiant watt. That is fact and constant....you keep trying to interchange that fact, and the losses that current technology present.
If you have a 100% blue led and also 100% efficient phosphor(~325lm/radiant watt) to use over it with a post conversion QER like cree(4.7µmols/j) ...you would in fact have 4.7µmols/j.
100% blue(1 radiant watt) using a 80% conversion phosphor(260lm per radiant watt) would give off 3.76µmols/j in full spectrum form. Compared to monochromatic blue of 3.72
PS...there is no phosphor conversion, or "after the conversion" with a blue. It's just what the die is outputting.