INTRODUCTION

Artificial lighting is being used more and more in the world. The usage is quite non-homogeneous. In developing countries, we can still find a widespread use of fuel based lighting but nowadays the situation is changing and the demand for electric based lighting is growing. Electric lighting consumes about 19% of the world total electricity use. So, we should remember and consider that the improvement in energy efficient lighting will also be helpful for the progress in developing countries. Every change in technologies, in customers consumption behaviour, even in lifestyle, has influences on global energy consumption and indirectly, on environment. Therefore, energy saving in lighting, and the methods of achieving this goal should be considered at different levels (state, region, town, enterprise) and by supranational organisations, too.

People stay in indoor environment for most of the day. Characteristics of light in indoor environment are much different than that of natural outdoor environment. On the other hand people do not stop activities after sunset. The artificial lighting has therefore impact on their well-being (see also the visual and non-visual aspects of light in Chapter 3). The needed artificial light has to be provided in energy efficient and environmentally conscious way. It is important to search for the technological solutions which meet human needs with the lowest impact on the environment during operation, when most of the impacts take place. The environmental impacts also include production and disposal of lamps, and related materials. Artificial lighting is based on systems: lamps, ballasts, starters, luminaires and controls. Ballasts are needed for discharge lamps to connect the lamp to the mains. Lamps, ballasts and starters are mounted in the luminaire with the wiring and lamp bases, reflectors distribute and redirect the light emitted from the lamp and louvers shield the user from glare. Control systems interact with the

building where they are installed. This means that the spider net of interactions and impacts is related with the architecture of the building (shape, space orientation etc. have influence for daylight contribution), with the supply network and with the different equipment installed, e.g. the heating, ventilation, cooling or electronic devices. Last, but not least, lighting systems are made for human beings who have individual needs and behaviours. User habits can be supported by automatic controls (for example, occupancy sensors), but the user habits cannot be overridden, and here education plays a major role. First of all, the perfect lighting system offering the best solution for every application does not exist. Every technology, including the more innovative and trendy ones, has its own limitations and its full potential is mainly related to specific application field. Furthermore, the best lamp, if used with poor or incompatible luminaire or ballast, loses most of its advantages. Combining good lamp, ballast and luminaire in a wrong installation may not meet the

user needs or provide lighting service in an inefficient way. Combination of a good lighting system in a well designed installation takes strong advantage from control devices, to drive the lighting system according to, for instance, on daylight availability and occupancy. In the case of new buildings the integration of daylight is important in order to reduce the energy consumption. To summarize, energy savings / efficiency and economics are dependent on: Improvement of lighting technologies Making better use of available cost-effective and energy efficient lighting technologies Lighting design (identify needs, avoid misuses, proper interaction of technologies, automatic controls, daylight integration) Building design (daylight integration and architecture) Knowledge dissemination to final users Knowledge dissemination to operators (designers, sellers, decision makers)

 Reduction of resources by recycling and proper disposal, size reduction, using less aluminium, mercury, etc. Life Cycle Cost Assessment LCCA In this chapter an overview is given for the current technologies of light sources, luminaries, and ballasts. Their potential is illustrated and the trends of the most promising ones are described. Integral lighting systems utilizing daylight together with electrical lighting systems and its control are also presented. 5.2 Light sources 5.2.1 Overview Following characteristics are to be considered when choosing a lamp for an application. a. Luminous efficacy Luminous flux Lamp power and ballast losses b. Lamp life Lumen depreciation during burning hours Mortality

c. Quality of light Spectrum Correlated color temperature (CCT) Color rendering index (CRI) d. Effect of ambient circumstances Voltage variations Ambient temperature Switching frequency Burning position Switch-on and restrike time Vibration e. Luminaire Lamp size, weight and shape Luminance Auxiliaries needed (ballast, starter, etc.) Total luminous flux Directionality of the light, size of the luminous element f. Purchase and operation costs

 Lamp price Lamp life Luminous efficacy Lamp replacement (relamping) costs Electricity price and burning hours are not lamp characteristics, but have an effect on operation costs.

Incandescent lamp
In incandescent lamp, which is also called General Lighting Service Lamp (GLS), light is produced by leading current through a tungsten wire. The working temperature of tungsten filaments in incandescent lamps is about 2700 K. Therefore the main emission occurs in the infrared region. The typical luminous efficacy of different types of incandescent lamps is in the range between 5 and 15 lm/W. Advantages of incandescent lamps: inexpensive easy to use, small and does not need auxiliary equipment easy to dim by changing the voltage excellent color rendering properties directly work at power supplies with fixed voltage free of toxic components instant switching Disadvantages of incandescent lamps: short lamp life (1000 h) low luminous efficacy heat generation is high lamp life and other characteristics are strongly dependent on the supply voltage the total costs are high due to high operation costs. The traditional incandescent lamps will be progressively replaced with more efficient light sources. For example, in Europe the Regulation 244/2009 is driving this process (EC 244/2009) (see also Chapter 4).

Tungsten halogen lamp

Tungsten halogen lamps are derived from incandescent lamps. Inside the bulb, halogen gas limits the evaporation of the filament, and redeposits the evaporated tungsten back to the filament through the so called halogen cycle. Compared to incandescent lamp the operating temperature is higher, and consequently the color temperature is also higher, which means that the light is whiter. Color rendering index is close to 100 as with incandescent lamps. Also, lumen depreciation is negligible. Their lifetime spans from 2000 to 4000 hours, and luminous efficacy is 12-35 lm/W. Halogen lamps are available in a wide range of models, shapes (from small capsules to linear double ended lamps), with or without reflectors. There are reflectors designed to redirect forward only the visible light, allowing infrared radiation to escape from the back of the lamp. There are halogen lamps available for mains voltages or low voltages (6-24V), the latter needing a stepdown transformer. Low voltage lamps have better luminous efficacy and longer lamp life than the high voltage lamps, but the transformer implicates energy losses in itself. The latest progress in halogen lamps has been reached by introducing selective-IR-mirrorcoatings in the bulb. The infrared coating redirects infrared radiations back to the filament. This increases the luminous efficacy by 4060% compared to other designs and lamp life is up to 4000 hours. Advantages of tungsten halogen lamps: small size directional light with some models (narrow beams) low-voltage alternatives easy to dim instant switching and full light output excellent color rendering properties

Disadvantages of tungsten halogen lamps low luminous efficacy

 surface temperature is high lamp life and other characteristics are strongly dependent on the supply voltage Tips Consider the choice of a halogen lamp if you need: instant switch on and instant full light excellent color rendering easy dimming frequent switching and, or short on-period directional light compact size of the light source.

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFL)

The CFL is a compact variant of the fluorescent lamp. The overall length is shortened and the tubular discharge tube is often folded into two to six fingers or a spiral. For a direct replacement of tungsten filament lamps, such compact lamps are equipped with internal ballasts and screw or bayonet caps. There are also pin base CFLs, which need an external ballast and starter for operation. The luminous efficacy of CFL is about four times higher than that of incandescent lamps. Therefore, it is possible to save energy and costs in lighting by replacing incandescent lamps with CFLs. Today, CFLs are available with: different shapes, with bare tubes or with an external envelope (look alike for incandescent lamp) different CCT (warm white, cool white) instant ignition (some) diminished sensitivity to rapid cycles dimmable (some) Advantages of compact fluorescent lamps good luminous efficacy long lamp life (6000-12 000 h) the reduced cooling loads when replacing incandescent lamps Disadvantages of compact fluorescent lamps expensive E-27 based are not dimmable (apart from special models) light output depreciates with age short burning cycles shorten lamp life

 the current waveform of CFLs with internal electronic ballast is distorted contain mercury

Tips the advantage of pin base lamps is that it is possible to replace the burnt lamp while keeping the ballast in place A physical limit of the CFLs is that a really instant ignition is incompatible with long life CFLs are ideal for situations in which long burning times are expected Care should be taken in the choice of the proper luminaire. It is very easy to unscrew a traditional incandescent lamp and replace it with a screw based CFL, but the result may be unsatisfying. This is because how the light is distributed around the CFL is very different compared to traditional incandescent lamps.

High Intensity Discharge lamps (High Pressure)

Without any temperature limitations (e.g. melting point of tungsten) it is possible to use gas discharges (plasmas) to generate optical radiation. Unlike thermal solid sources with continuous spectral emission, radiation from the gas discharge occurs predominantly in form of single spectral lines. These lines may be used directly or after spectral conversion by phosphors for emission of light. Discharge lamps generate light of different color quality, according to how the spectral lines are distributed in the visible range. To prevent runaway current and ensure stable operation from a constant voltage supply, the negative current-voltage characteristics of gas discharge lamps must be counterbalanced by a circuit element such as conventional magnetic or electronic ballasts. In all cases, higher voltages are needed for igniting the discharge. The power conversion per unit volume in high pressure arc discharge lamps is 100 to 1000 times higher than that of low pressure lamps, which leads to considerable thermal loadings on the discharge tube walls. The wall temperatures may be in the region of 1000C. The discharge tubes are typically made of quartz or PCA (polycrystalline sintered alumina: Al2O3). The arc discharge is provided with electrical power via tungsten pin electrodes. In most cases the main constituent of the plasma is mercury. To reach operating pressures of 1-10 bars, the vaporization of filling materials requires a warm-up time of up to 5 minutes after ignition. For starting high pressure lamps (except mercury lamps) superimposed pulses of some kVs from external ignition circuits or internal ferroelectric capacitors are used. An immediate re-start after short power break demands voltages of more than 20 kV. Many types of high pressure discharge lamps can not be dimmed, others only in a power range of 50% to 100%.

Mercury Lamps

In mercury lamp light is produced with electric current passing through mercury vapour. An arc discharge in mercury vapour at a pressure of about 2 bars emits five strong spectral lines in the visible wavelengths at 404.7 nm, 435.8 nm, 546.1 nm, 577 nm and 579 nm. The red-gap is filled up by a phosphor-layer at the outer bulb. Typical values of these lamps are luminous efficacy 4060 lm/W, CRI between 40 and 60 and CCT 4000 K. The lamp life is 12 000 h. Mercury lamps will be banned from European market after 2015. (EC 245/2009)

Neon Lamps:
Neon was discovered in 1898 by William Ramsay and Morris W. Travers. The characteristic, brilliant red color that is emitted by gaseous neon when excited electrically was noted immediately; Travers later wrote, "the blaze of crimson [1] light from the tube told its own story and was a sight to dwell upon and never forget." Neon's scarcity precluded its prompt application for electrical lighting along the lines of Moore tubes, which used electric discharges in nitrogen. Moore tubes were commercialized by their inventor, Daniel McFarlan Moore, in the early 1900s. After 1902, Georges Claude's company, Air Liquide, was producing industrial quantities of neon as a

byproduct of his air liquefaction business, and in December 1910 Claude demonstrated modern neon lighting based on a sealed tube of neon. In 1915 a U.S. patent was issued to Claude covering the design of the electrodes for neon [2] tube lights; this patent became the basis for the monopoly held in the U.S. by his company, Claude Neon Lights, [3] through the early 1930s. Around 1917, Daniel Moore developed the neon lamp while working at the General Electric Company. The lamp has a very different design from the much larger neon tubes used for neon lighting. The difference in design was sufficient [4] that a U.S. patent was issued for the lamp in 1919. A Smithsonian Institution website notes, "These small, low power devices use a physical principle called coronal discharge. Moore mounted two electrodes close together in a bulb and added neon or argon gas. The electrodes would glow brightly in red or blue, depending on the gas, and the lamps lasted for years. Since the electrodes could take almost any shape imaginable, a popular application has been fanciful decorative lamps. Glow lamps found practical use as indicators in instrument panels and in many home [5] appliances until the widespread commercialisation of Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) in the 1970s."

Description

DC and AC supplied NE-2 type neon lamps

A small electric current, (For a 5 mm bulb diameter NE-2 lamp, the quiescent current is about 400 uA) which may be AC or DC, is allowed through the tube, causing it to glow orange-red. The gas is typically a Penning mixture, 99.5% neon and 0.5% argon, which has lower striking voltage than pure neon. The lamp glow discharge lights at its striking voltage. The voltage required to sustain the discharge is significantly (~30%) lower than the striking voltage. This is due to the organization of positive ions near the cathode. When driven from a DC source, only the negatively charged electrode (cathode) will glow. When driven from an AC source, both electrodes will glow (each during alternate half cycles). These attributes make neon bulbs (with series resistors) a convenient low-cost voltage testers; they determine whether a given voltage source is AC or DC, and if DC, the polarity of the points being tested. Neon lamps operate using a low current glow discharge. Higher power devices, such as mercury-vapor lamps or metal halide lamps use a higher current arc discharge. The ubiquitous high pressure sodium-vapor lamp uses a neon penning mixture for warm up and can be operated as a giant neon lamp if operated in a low power mode. All of these devices exhibit the phenomenon called negative resistance.

Graph showing the relationship between current and voltage across a neon lamp.[dubious discuss]

Once the neon lamp has reached breakdown, it can support a large current flow. Because of this characteristic, electrical circuitry external to the neon lamp must limit the current through the circuit or else the current will rapidly increase until the lamp is destroyed. For indicator-sized lamps, a resistor typically limits the current. Larger neon sign sized lamps often use a specially constructed high voltage transformer with high leakage inductance or other electrical ballast to limit the available current. When the current through the lamp is lower than the current for the highest-current discharge path, the glow [dubious discuss] discharge may become unstable and not cover the entire surface of the electrodes. This may be a sign of aging of the indicator bulb, and is exploited in the decorative "flicker flame" neon lamps. However, while too low a current causes flickering, too high a current increases the wear of the electrodes by stimulatingsputtering, which coats the internal surface of the lamp with metal and causes it to darken. The potential needed to strike the discharge is higher than what is needed to sustain the discharge. When there is not enough current, the glow forms around only part of the electrode surface. Convective currents make the glowing areas flow upwards, not unlike the discharge in a Jacob's ladder. A photoionization effect can also be observed here, as the electrode area covered by the glow discharge can be increased by shining light at the lamp. In comparison with incandescent light bulbs, neon lamps have much higher luminous efficacy. Incandescence is heat-driven light emission, so a large portion of the electric energy put into an incandescent bulb is converted into heat. Non-incandescent light sources such as neon light bulbs, fluorescent light bulbs, and light emitting diodes are [clarification needed] therefore much more energy efficient than normal incandescent light bulbs. Green neon bulbs can produce up to 65 lumens per watt of power input, while white neon bulbs have an efficacy of around 50 lumens per [6] watt. In contrast, a standard incandescent light bulb only produces around 13.5 lumens per watt.

Applications

The digits of a Nixie tube.

Most small neon (indicator-sized) lamps, such as the common NE-2, break down at between 90 and 110 volts. This feature enables their use as very simple voltage regulators or overvoltageprotection devices. In the 1960s General Electric (GE), Signalite, and other firms made special extra-stable neon lamps for electronic uses. They even devised [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] digital logic circuits, binarymemories, and frequency dividers using neon lamps. Such circuits appeared in electronic organs of the 1950s, as well as some instrumentation. At least some of these lamps had a glow concentrated into a small spot on the cathode, which made them unsuited to use as indicators. These were sometimes called "circuit-component" lamps, the other variety being indicators. A variant of the NE-2 type lamp, the NE-77, had three parallel wires (in a plane) instead of the usual two. It was also intended primarily to be a circuit component. Small neon lamps are used as indicators in electronic equipment. Called "tuneons" in 1930s radio sets, they were fitted as tuning indicators, and would give a brighter glow as the station was tuned in correctly. Larger lamps are used in neon signage. Neon lamps, due to their low current consumption, are used as nightlights. Because of their comparatively fast response time, in the early development of televisionneon lamps were used as the light source in many mechanical-scan TV displays. They were also used for a variety of other purposes; since a neon lamp can act as a relaxation oscillator with an added resistor and capacitor, it can be used as a simple flashing lamp oraudio oscillator. (See Pearson-Anson effect.) Neon lamps have been historically used as microwave and millimeter-wave detectors ('plasma diodes' or GDDsGlow Discharge Detectors) up to about 100 GHz or so and in such service were said to exhibit comparable sensitivity (of the order of a few 10s to perhaps 100 microvolts) to the familiar 1N23-type catwhisker-contacted silicon diodes once ubiquitous in microwave equipment. More recently it has been found that these lamps work well as detectors even at submillimeter ('terahertz') frequencies and they have been successfully used as pixels in several experimental imaging arrays at these wavelengths. In these applications the lamps are operated either in 'starvation' mode (to reduce lamp-current noise) or in normal glow discharge mode; some literature references their use as detectors of radiation up into the optical regime when operated in abnormal glow mode. Coupling of microwaves into the plasma may be in free space, in waveguide, by means of a parabolic concentrator (e.g., Winston cone), or via capacitive means via a loop or dipole antenna mounted directly to the lamp. Although most of these applications use ordinary off-the-shelf dual-electrode lamps, in one case it was found that special 3 (or more) electrode lamps, with the extra electrode acting as the coupling antenna, provided even better results (lower noise and higher sensitivity). This discovery received an application patent (Kopeika et al.)

Neon lamps with several shaped electrodes were used as alphanumerical displays known as Nixie tubes. These have since been replaced by other display devices such as light emitting diodes, vacuum fluorescent displays, and liquid crystal displays. Novelty glow lamps with shaped electrodes (such as flowers and leaves), often coated with phosphors, have been made for artistic purposes. In some of these, the glow that surrounds an electrode is part of the design.

Unlit and lit neon lamps (NE-2 type) and their light spectrum.

In AC-excited lamps, both electrodes produce light, but in a DC-excited lamp, only the negative electrode glows. Thus a neon lamp can be used to distinguish between AC and DC sources and to ascertain the polarity of DC sources.

Colour
Neon indicator lamps are normally orange, and are frequently used with a coloured filter over them to improve contrast and change their colour to red or a redder orange, or less often green.

Phosphor-coloured neon lamps

They can also be filled with argon, krypton, or xenon rather than neon, or mixed with it. While the electrical operating [which?] characteristics remain similar, the lamps light with a bluish glow (including some ultraviolet) rather than neon's characteristic reddish-orange glow. Ultraviolet radiation then can be used to excite a phosphor coating inside of the [15] bulb and provide a wide range of various colors, including white. A mixture of neon and krypton can be used for green glow, but nevertheless "green neon" lamps are more commonly phosphor-based. Neon lighting quickly became a popular fixture in outdoor advertising. Visible even in daylight, people would stop and stare at the first neon signs for hours, he next major technological innovation in neon lighting and signs was the development of fluorescent tube coatings. Jacques Risler received a French patent in 1926 for these.
[3]

Neon signs

that use an argon/mercury gas mixture emit a good deal of ultraviolet light. When this light is absorbed by a fluorescent coating, preferably inside the tube, the coating (called a "phosphor") glows with its own color. While only a few colors were initially available to sign designers, after the Second World War (19391945) phosphor materials were researched intensively for use in color televisions. About two dozen colors were available to neon sign designers in the 1960s, and today there are nearly 100 available colors.
[5]

History

Neon sign

1930s neon sign dealer, Anson Brown Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The neon sign is an evolution of the earlier Geissler tube, which is an electrified glass tube containing a "rarefied" gas (the gas pressure in the tube is well below atmospheric pressure). When a voltage is applied to electrodes inserted through the glass, an electricalglow discharge results. Geissler tubes were quite popular in the late 1800s, and the different colors they emitted were characteristics of the gases within. They were, however, unsuitable for general lighting; the pressure of the gas inside typically declined in use. The direct predecessor of neon tube lighting was the Moore tube, which used nitrogen or carbon dioxide as the luminous gas and a patented mechanism for [8][9] maintaining pressure; Moore tubes were sold for commercial lighting for a number of years in the early 1900s. The discovery of neon in 1898 included the observation of a brilliant red glow in Geissler tubes. Immediately [11] following neon's discovery, neon tubes were used as scientific instruments and novelties. A sign created by Perley G. Nutting and displaying the word "neon" may have been shown at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, [12] although this claim has been disputed; in any event, the scarcity of neon would have precluded the development of a lighting product. However, after 1902, Georges Claude's company in France, Air Liquide, began producing [9] industrial quantities of neon, essentially as a byproduct of their air liquefaction business. From December 318, [1][13] 1910, Claude demonstrated two 12-metre (39 ft) long bright red neon tubes at the Paris Motor Show. This [14] demonstration lit a peristyle of the Grand Palais (a large exhibition hall). Claude's associate, Jacques Fonseque, realized the possibilities for a business based on signage and advertising. By 1913 a large sign for the vermouth Cinzano illuminated the night sky in Paris, and by 1919 the entrance to the Paris Opera was adorned with [2] neon tube lighting. Over the next several years, patents were granted to Claude for two innovations still used today: a "bombardment" technique to remove impurities from the working gas of a sealed sign, and a design for the internal [9] electrodes of the sign that prevented their degradation by sputtering.
[10]

In 1923, Georges Claude and his French company Claude Neon introduced neon gas signs to the United States by selling two to aPackard car dealership in Los Angeles. Earle C. Anthony purchased the two signs reading "Packard" [1] for $1,250 apiece. Neon lighting quickly became a popular fixture in outdoor advertising. Visible even in daylight, [15] people would stop and stare at the first neon signs for hours, dubbed "liquid fire." The next major technological innovation in neon lighting and signs was the development of fluorescent tube coatings. [3] Jacques Risler received a French patent in 1926 for these. Neon signs that use an argon/mercury gas mixture emit a good deal of ultraviolet light. When this light is absorbed by a fluorescent coating, preferably inside the tube, the coating (called a "phosphor") glows with its own color. While only a few colors were initially available to sign designers, after the Second World War (19391945) phosphor materials were researched intensively for use in color televisions. About two dozen colors were available to neon sign designers in the 1960s, and today there are nearly [5] 100 available colors. [edit]Fabrication

An enormous number of colors can be created by combinations of different gases and fluorescent coatings in the tube.

Neon tube signs are produced by the craft of bending glass tubing into shapes. A worker skilled in this craft is known as a glass bender, neon bender or tube bender. The neon tube is made out of 4-5' straight sticks of hollow glass sold by sign suppliers to neon shops worldwide, where they are manually assembled into individual custom designed and fabricated lamps. There are many dozens of colors available, determined by the type of glass tubing and the composition of the gas filling. Neon sign manufacturing is a cottage industry and an eclectic art, and in most cases, is organized as a small family business. Even today, almost all neon tubes are handmade and labor intensive. The shop equipment used to fabricate signs is itself typically custom-assembled from scratch from discrete parts by the craftsmen who will use the equipment. Tubing in external diameters ranging from about 815 mm with a 1 mm wall thickness is most commonly used, although 6 mm tubing is now commercially available in colored glass tubes. The tube is heated in sections using several types of burners that are selected according to the amount of glass to be heated for each bend. These burners include ribbon, cannon, or crossfires, as well as a variety of gas torches. Ribbon burners are strips of fire that make the gradual bends while crossfires, when used, make the sharp bends.

[16][17][18][19]

The interior of the tubes may be coated with a thin phosphorescent powder coating, affixed to the interior wall of the tube by a binding material. The tube is filled with a purified gas mixture, and the gas ionized by a high voltage applied between the ends of the sealed tube through cold cathodes welded onto the ends. The color of the light emitted by the tube may be just that coming from the gas, or the light from the phosphor layer. Different phosphor-coated tubing sections may be butt welded together using glass working torches to form a single tube of varying colors, for effects such as a sign where each letter displays a different color letter within a single word, such as shown in the sign in the photo above right. "Neon" is used to denote the general type of lamp, but neon gas is only one of the types of tube gases principally used in commercial application. Pure neon gas is used to produce only about a third of the colors. The greatest number of colors is produced by filling with another inert gas, argon, and a drop of mercury (Hg) which is added to the tube immediately after purification. When the tube is ionized by electrification, the mercury evaporates into mercury vapor, which fills the tube and produces strong ultraviolet light. The ultraviolet light thus produced excites the various phosphor coatings designed to produce different colors. Even though this class of neon tubes use no neon at all, they are still denoted as "neon." Mercury-bearing lamps are a type of cold-cathode fluorescent lamps. Each type of neon tubing produces two completely different possible colors, one with neon gas and the other with argon/mercury. Some "neon" tubes are made without phosphor coatings for some of the colors. Clear tubing filled with neon gas produces the ubiquitous yellowish orange color with the interior plasma column clearly visible, and is the cheapest and simplest tube to make. Traditional neon glasses in America over 20 years old are lead glass that are easy to soften in gas fires, but recent environmental and health concerns of the workers has prompted manufacturers to seek more environmentally safe special soft glass formulas. One of the vexing problems avoided this way is lead glass' tendency to burn into a black spot emitting lead fumes in a bending flame too rich in the fuel/oxygen mixture. Another traditional line of glasses was colored soda lime glasses coming in a myriad of glass color choices, which produce the highest quality, most hypnotically vibrant and saturated hues. Still more color choices are afforded in either coating, or not coating, these colored glasses with the various available exotic phosphors.

Long lifetime
It is the wide range of colors and the ability to make a tube that can last for years if not decades without replacement, that makes this an art. Since these tubes require so much custom labor, they would have very little economic viability if they did not have such a long lifetime when well processed. The intensity of neon light produced increases slowly as the tube diameter grows smaller, that is, the intensity varies inversely with the square root of the interior diameter of the tubing, and the resistance of the tube increases as the tubing diameter decreases accordingly, because tube ionization is greatest at the center of the tube, and the ions migrate to and are recaptured and neutralized at the tube walls. The greatest cause of neon tube failure is the gradual absorption of neon gas by high voltage ion implantation into the interior glass walls of the tubes which depletes the gas, and eventually causes the tube resistance to rise to a level that it can no longer light at the rated voltage, but this may take 7 10 years. The actual cause of 80% of neon sign failures is the burnout of the high voltage electrical wires connecting the tubes inside of metal conduits. A very common type of neon sign is made from a formed metal box having a colored translucent face, called "channel lettering". Newer channel letter signs are being replaced by high brightness LEDs. This long lifetime has created a practical market for neon use for interior architectural cove lighting in a wide variety of uses including homes, where the tube can be bent to any shape, fitted in a small space, and can do so without requiring tube replacement for a decade or more.

Applications

Light-emitting tubes form colored lines with which a text can be written or a picture drawn, including various decorations, especially inadvertising and commercial signage. By programming sequences of switching parts on and off, there are many possibilities for dynamic light patterns that form animated images. In some applications, neon tubes are increasingly being replaced with LEDs, given the steady advance in LED [21] luminosity and decreasing cost of high-intensity LEDs. However, proponents of neon technology maintain that they [22] still have significant advantages over LEDs. Neon illumination is valuable to invoke 1940s or 1950s nostalgia in marketing and in historic restoration of architectural landmarks from the neon era. Architecture in the streamline moderne era often deployed neon to accent structural pigmented glass built into the faade of a 1930s or 1940s structure; many of these buildings now qualify for inclusion on historic registers such as the US National Register of Historic Places if their historic integrity is [23] faithfully maintained. [edit]Images

of neon signs

Helium

Neon

Argon (with Mercury)

Krypton

Xenon

A deteriorated, 1950s era sign typical of Googie architecture; "Ships" was a chain of coffee shops in Los Angeles. [24]

Bombardment
A cold cathode electrode is melted (or welded) to each end of the tube as it is finished. The electrodes are also traditionally lead glass and contain a small metal shell with two wires protruding through the glass to which the sign wiring will later be attached. All welds and seals must be perfectly leak-proof to high vacuum before proceeding further. The tube is attached to a manifold which is itself attached to a high-quality vacuum pump. The tube is then evacuated of air until it reaches near-vacuum. During evacuation, a high current is forced through the tube via the wires protruding from each electrode (in a process known as "bombarding"). This current and voltage is far above the level that occurs in final operation of the tube. The current depends on the specific electrodes used and the diameter of the tube, but is typically in the 450 mA to 800 mA range, at an applied voltage usually between 22,000-26,000 V. The bombarding transformer acts as an adjustable constant current source, and the voltage produced depends on the

length and pressure of the tube. Typically the operator will maintain the pressure as high as the bombarder will allow to ensure maximum power dissipation and heating. This very high power dissipation in the tube heats the glass walls to a temperature of several hundred degrees Celsius, and any dirt and impurities within are drawn off in the gasified form by the vacuum pump. The greatest impurities that are driven off this way are the gases that coat the inside wall of the tubing by adsorption, mainly o oxygen, carbon dioxide, and especially water vapor. The current also heats the electrode metal to over 600 C, producing a bright orange incandescent color. The cathodes are prefabricated hollow metal shells with a small opening (sometimes a ceramic donut aperture) which contains in the interior surface of the shell a light dusting of a cold cathode low work function powder (usually a powder ceramic molar eutectic point mixture including BaCO2), combined with other alkaline earth oxides, which reduces to BaO2 when heated to about 500 degrees F, and reduces the work function of the electrode for cathodic emission. Barium Oxide has a work function of roughly 2 whereas tungsten at room temperature has a work function exponentially 100 times more, or 4.0. This represents the cathode drop or electron energy required to remove electrons from the surface of the cathode. This avoids the necessity of using a hot wire thermoelectric cathode such as is used in conventional fluorescent lamps. And for that reason, neon tubes are extremely long lived when properly processed, in contrast to fluorescent tubing, because there is no wire filament as there is in a fluorsecent tube to burn out like a common light bulb. The principal purpose of doing this is to purify the interior of the tube before the tube is sealed off so that when it is operated, these gases and impurities are not driven off and released by the plasma and the heat generated into the sealed tube, which would quickly burn the metal cathodes and mercury droplets (if pumped with argon/mercury) and oxidize the interior gases and cause immediate tube failure. The more thorough the purification of the tube is, the longer lasting and stable the tube will be in actual operation. Once these gases and impurities are liberated under pre-filling bombardment into the tube interior they are quickly evacuated by the pump. While still attached to the manifold, the tube is allowed to cool while pumping down to the lowest pressure the system can achieve. It is then filled to a low pressure of a few torrs (millimeters of mercury) with one of the noble gases, or a mixture of them, and sometimes a small amount of mercury. This gas fill pressure represents roughly 1/100th of the pressure of the atmosphere. The required pressure depends on the gas used and the diameter of the tube, with optimal values ranging from 6 Torr (0.8 kPa) (for a long 20 mm tube filled with argon/mercury) to 27 Torr (3.6 kPa) (for a short 8 mm diameter tube filled with pure neon). Neon or argon are the most common gases used; krypton, xenon, and helium are used by artists for special purposes but are not used alone in normal signs. A premixed combination of argon and helium is often used in lieu of pure argon when a tube is to be installed in a cold climate, since the helium increases voltage drop (and thus power dissipation), warming the tube to operating temperature faster. Neon glows bright red or reddish orange when lit. When argon or argon/helium is used, a tiny droplet of mercury is added. Argon by itself is very dim pale lavender when lit, but the droplet of mercury fills the tube with mercury vapor when sealed, which then emits ultraviolet light upon electrification. This ultraviolet emission allows finished argon/mercury tubes to glow with a variety of bright colors when the tube has been coated on the interior with ultraviolet-sensitive phosphors after being bent into shape. [edit]Heat

processed neon tubes

An alternative way of processing finished neon tubes has also been used. Because the only purpose of bombardment by electrical means is to purify the interior of tubes, it is also possible to produce a tube by heating the tube externally either with a torch or with an oven, while heating the electrode with a Radio Frequency Induction Heating coil (RFIH). While this is less productive, it creates a cleaner custom tube with significantly less cathode damage, longer life and brilliance, and can produce tubes of very small sizes and diameters, down to 6mm OD. The tube is heated thoroughly under high vacuum without external electrical application, until the outgassed gases can be seen to have been totally depleted and the pressure drops to a high vacuum again. Then the tube is filled, sealed and the mercury dropped and shaken.

Electrical wiring
The finished glass pieces are illuminated by either a neon sign transformer or a switched-mode power supply running at voltages ranging between 3-15 kV and currents between 20 and 120 mA. These power supplies operate as constant-current sources (a high voltage supply with a very high internal impedance), since the tube has a negative characteristic electrical impedance. Standard tube tables established in the early days of neon are still used that specify the gas fill pressures, in either Ne or Hg/Ar, as a function of tube length in feet, tube diameter and transformer voltage. The standard traditional neon transformer, a magnetic shunt transformer, is a special non-linear type designed to keep the voltage across the tube raised to whatever level is necessary to produce the fixed current needed. The voltage drop of a tube is proportional to length and so the maximum voltage and length of tubing fed from a given transformer is limited. Compact high frequency inverter-converter transformers developed in the early 1990s are used, especially when low Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is needed, such as in locations near high-fidelity sound equipment. At the typical frequency of these solid state transformers, the plasma electron-ion recombination time is too long to extinguish and reignite the plasma at each cycle, unlike the case at power line frequency. The plasma does not [citation needed] broadcast high frequency switching noise and remains ionized continually, becoming radio noise free. The most common current rating is 30 mA for general use, with 60 mA used for high-brightness applications like channel letters or architectural lighting. 120 mA sources are occasionally seen in illuminating applications, but are uncommon since special electrodes are required to withstand the current, and an accidental shock from a 120 mA transformer is much more likely to be fatal than from the lower current supplies. The efficiency of neon lighting ranges between that of ordinary incandescent lights and that of fluorescent lamps, depending on color. On a per-watt basis, incandescents produce 10 to 20 lumens, while fluorescents produce 50 to 100 lumens. Neon light efficiency ranges from 10 lumens per watt for red, up to 60 lumens for green and blue when [20] these colors result from internal phosphor coatings. [edit]Blocking

out and coating

Club Prima Donna animated neon sign inReno, Nevada, 1955.

A trick of the eye is used to produce visually distinct neon display segments by blocking out parts of the tube with an opaque coating. One complete assembly may be composed of contiguous tube elements joined by glass welding to one another so that the same current passes through, for example, several letters joined end to end from cathode to cathode. To the untrained eye, this looks like separate tubes, but the electrical splice is the plasma inside the crossover glass itself. The entire tube lights up, but the segments that the viewer is not supposed to see are covered

with highly opaque special black or gray glass paint. This heat-resistant coating is either painted on or dipped. Without blockout paint, the unintended visual connections would make the display appear confusing. In most mass produced low-priced signs today, clear glass tubing is coated with translucent paint to produce colored light. In this way, several different colors can be produced inexpensively from a single glowing tube. Over time, elevated temperatures, thermal cycling, or exposure to weather may cause the colored coating to flake off the glass or change its hue. A more expensive alternative is to use high-quality colored glass tubing, which retains a more stable appearance as it ages.

Neon lamps are recommended for 110 volt AC, 220 volt AC, and DC applications in excess of 90 volts. The lamps are available in miniature and subminiature sizes. A neon lamp is constructed by mounting two electrodes within a small glass envelope. Two wire leads made of tin plated Dumet metal are brought out of the lamp to make electrical connections to the electrodes. Standard brightness lamps are filled with a neon/argon gas mixture, and high brightness lamps are filled with pure neon gas. When a starting voltage (usually 55-110 volts AC, or 90140 volts DC) is applied, the gas ionizes and starts to glow permitting a very small current to travel from one electrode to the other. Once ionized, a lower voltage will maintain the operation of the lamp. The maintaining voltage is usually 10-20 volts below the starting voltage, depending on the

lamp and the operating current. For lamps operating on AC voltages of 60 Hz or higher frequency, the light output will appear to the eye as continuous. When the gas ionizes it becomes a conductor, and an external series resistor is required to limit the current. To calculate the value of the series resistor, subtract the maintaining voltage from the supply voltage to obtain the voltage across the resistor, then use Ohms Law and desired current level to determine resistance value. [Vp(power supply voltage) - Vn(neon lamp voltage)*] R(resistor value in Ohms) = ______________________________________________ I(current in Amperes) * Typical neon operating voltage is approximately 90 volts Typical resistance values range from 10K to 22

20K Ohms. The power dissipation of the required resistor is small, usually less than watt, but should be checked for high voltage applications. Typical current for neon lamps is between 0.5 and 3.0 mA. Power dissipation in the resistor can be calculated by the following formula, P(power in watts) = I(current in Amperes) x

I(current in Amperes) x R(resistor in Ohms) Neon lamps are very rugged and not affected by vibration, mechanical shock, or frequent ON/OFF operation. Neon lamps may be operated over a wide temperature range from -40 to +150 degrees C, and are not damaged by voltage transients of high voltage static discharges. Neon lamps have a special operating characteristic that also allow them to be used as moderately stable high voltage reference voltage sources. When driven with DC voltage at their design current the voltage across the lamp is stable at a value near 90 volts. Neon lamps gradually decline in light output as electrodes evaporate and condense on the inside of the glass envelope. This situation is gradual with failure defined as a 50% decrease from the original brightness. As neon lamps age, the firing voltages slowly increase until reaching the value of the supply voltage. At this point the lamp flickers and becomes erratic, indicating the end of useful lifetime. Life expectancy of a neon lamp increases considerably as operating current is decreased. For high brightness lamps, there is a 4 to 5 power

inverse relationship between current and life, whereas for standard brightness types, the lamp life varies inversely as the 3.5 power of the current. With light output exponentially proportional to current, large increases in rated life can be obtained with small reductions in current and only a small reduction in brightness. For neon lamp applications requiring life ratings of more than 50,000 hours the use of a higher value resistor will reduce lamp current and achieve longer life. For DC operation, the life of a high brightness lamp is about 50% of a neon lamp operating at the same RMS AC voltage. The life of a standard brightness lamp at DC is about 60% of the life value at AC. Typical light output color for clear glass neon lamps is in the orange-red range of 600 to 700 nanometers. Other emitted colors as green, yellow and blue are available through secondary emission by coating the inside surface of the envelope with phosphor.

Arc Lamps

The First Form of Electric Light

History of the Carbon Arc Lamp (1800 - 1980s)
All credits and sources are located at the bottom of each lighting page

Introduction & Statistics

Design Variations Timeline Modern Day Ancestor: Xenon Arc Lamp

How They Work Inventors and Developments

The carbon arc lamp was the first

widely-used type of electric light and the first commercially successful form of electric lamp. Unlike the rest of the types of lighting described in our Electric Lighting pages, the arc light's development had to coincide with basic power generation developments. As batteries, generators and power conditioning technology developed arc lamps could be made more sophisticated. The carbon rod was often replaced by magnetite (iron ore) for longer life by 1905. The carbon arc lamp led to other arc discharge lamps like the mercury vapor, sodium andfluorescent lamps. Today the lamp has been replaced by the xenon short-arc lamp.
Left: Two arc lamps: single and double arc lamp designed by Elihu Thomson and E.W. Rice for the Thomson-Houston Electric Company 1880s

Carbon Arc Lamp: Advantages:

-Super bright light, capable of lighting a large length of street or a large factory interior -Was the ONLY electric light available to light large areas from 1800 - 1901 -Was cheaper to light streets with the arc lamp than gas or oil lamps

Disadvantages:
-Carbon rods had to be replaced after a short period of time, this became a full time job in a city -Produces dangerous UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C rays -Created a buzzing sound and flickering as the light burned -Created large amounts of RFI (radio frequency interference) -Dangerous: it was a fire hazard, many theaters burned as a result of the excessive heat or sparks emitted, also the unenclosed lamp could easily electrocute or severally burn technicians. -Carbon Monoxide emissions (bad for indoor use!) It only worked in the past because buildings were poorly insulated and fresh air could enter. Some of today's energy efficient buildings are almost air tight.

Statistics *Lumens per watt: 2 - 7 (best rating is for an enclosed lamp) *Lamp life (life of carbon rods): 75 hrs average (1890s) 175 hrs (1911) 600 hrs (magnetite electrode) Life depends on the length of the electrode (hrs per inch was used) *CRI NA *Color Temperature: NA Warm up time: instant on
Common uses: outdoor lighting: street lighting, trolley route lighting, film and slide projector lamps, indoor factory and mill lighting, retail shop lighting and palace/ballroom lighting, search lights, spot lights

1. How it Works

2. Variations & Uses

3. Developments, Timeline & Inventors

Below: 4 Minute Video on the Carbon Arc Lamp. Youtube must be accessible on your internet server for this to work.

1.) How it Works:

The lamp is a spark or electric arc through the air between two carbon rods. The rods must have a gap in between of the right size. If the gap is too big than the arc will flicker more or may go out, if the gap is to narrow than it will produce less light. The first carbon was made of charcoal (made from wood). The carbon substance is vaporized in the high temperature of the arc (around 6500 F, 3600 C). The carbon vapor is highly luminous (very bright) and this is why we use carbon in the lamp. This light is much more useful and bright than that of an arc between steel like in the Jacobs Ladder example photo below. The carbon vapor and normal air ionizes easily which helps make light. When the atoms of the carbon and air ionize it means they give up and take on electrons. This happens as electric current passes from one electrode (in this

case one of the carbon rods) to the other electrode. Lighting ionizes the air that is passes through. Below: A Jacobs Ladder, a common science teaching toy shows the electric arc through air. The arc is not very bright compared to a carbon arc lamp. The study of the behavior of the electric arc through gas is covered in the field of plasma physics.

Sparks, Mercury, Containment and Buckyballs The carbon arc lamp once lit produces a useful bright light, however undesirable aspects exist. The lamp produces hot sparks and buckyballs which can and have caused fires. Early arc lamps used in department stores were a concern because hot sparks would randomly fall to the floor, on people, or on merchandise. The lamp also produces UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C light which are harmful to both the eyes and skin. Early arc lamp makers didn't know about UV light yet, but did realize that diffusing the light made for better quality light. Early arc lamp inventors created glass globes to fit around the lamp. Some globes were made of opal glass to diffuse the light and the silica glass blocked some of the harmful UV rays. Early globes often had an open top to allow heat to escape (see the various designs near the bottom of this page here). These protective globes are not to be confused with the "enclosed carbon arc". The enclosed carbon arc was an arc lamp which completely enclosed the electrodes. The upper electrode was fed through a hole in the top. This enclosed lamp prevented oxygen from easily reaching the arc. With less available oxygen the arc burned slower and the lamp life was greatly improved.

The Mercury Arc: Some early visionaries discovered that by adding mercury into the enclosed arc lamp a green light was created. This was an early predecessor to the mercury vapor lamp. When the hot lamp struck it vaporized the mercury stuck to the inside of the bulb, this helped produce better light with a higher efficiency. The mercury arc was not popular and did not take over the market because it had an ugly greenish color. It did get used as a germicidal lamp due to its increased UV emission. We do not call this a "mercury vapor lamp", the "mercury vapor lamp" as we know today uses a sealed low or high pressure bulb/tube and the two electrodes are made of metal or tungsten, not carbon sticks. We have a separate page for this more advanced type of lamp here. Buckyballs are made of Carbon-20 through 60. Buckyballs are giant molecules which border on being a 'solid' not a small particle. These large molecules behave strangely compared to normal molecules. There are up to 240 electrons total, they act collectively when excited and oscillate back and forth forming a surface plasmon. They are created in natural soot and charcoal which is part of the process of making the carbon rods for the lamp.

Mind the Gap: One issue with the carbon arc lamp is that the rods of carbon are burned away over time. Therefore if you have two carbon rods firmly mounted the gap will grow bigger between as the carbon rod itself is vaporized. Eventually the arc will cease when the gap gets large enough. The solution to this problem in the first experimental lamps was to use insulated pliers and slide the rods close again as it burned. To make a commercial product (which is a central issue in all of our lighting pages) inventors and engineers have to design a system that is RELIABLE. While scientists can do experiments and observations with handmade prototypes, it is up to the engineer to labor over ways to make a lamp useful (in other words reliable and easy to use/maintain) to the masses . This is difference between scientists and engineers. In the carbon arc lamp inventors had to figure out a mechanical way to feed carbons into the device as it burned up. Control Engineering was used to figure out a way to sense the current and voltage draw of the lamp (which changes as the gap gets bigger) and control a set of magnets and devices that would keep the gap size constant and lamp working for hours. Lamps in the 1870s and before used clockwork type feeding devices - gears, clutches and works by slowly feeding the carbons. Engineers at the Thomson-Houston Company figured out how to use a differential system which worked better than the early Brush clutch systems. Feeding devices for arc lamps are a large subject.

Above Left: A lit arc lamp from the 1880s as was used in urban lighting and factories. Photo by Michael Spadafora

In the schematic above you will see how electricity is channeled through devices which sense and react to current in order to do several jobs: 1.) Keep the gap at the ideal distance

2.) Act as a resistor (ballast) to limit current to the arc 3.) Control and condition incoming power which may by unstable

Components of the early arc light system:

A Current Regular developed by E.W. Rice Jr. allowed more lights to be places on one circuit

A Controlling Magnet developed byElihu Thomson Thomson's dynamo for sale in the 1880s, used in Philadelphia

Further Improvements: In the quest to make better arc lamps which lasted longer and therefore required less trimming (the term for adding new carbon rods) engineers experimented with adding compounds to the carbon rods. William Wallace who happened to be from the copper towns of Connecticut developed a copper plated electrode with carbon in the center. The Flame Arc Lamp: Until the 1890s most of the light emitted by the lamp came from the glowing carbon tips. The flame arc lamp produced more carbon vapor which made a flame that produced most of the light. The flame arc lamp lasted much longer, now a lamp could last for days without trimming. In 1904 Steinmetz used magnetite carbons to make much longer life. The carbon rod was mostly made of magnetic oxides of iron. Sometimes titanium carbide and titanium oxide were added as well. This lamp was a flame arc lamp type. How to build your own carbon arc lamp and more details about how it works

Developments, Timeline and Inventors

3.

The arc lamp is not used today, however it is extremely important due to its role in history. So we have more material here than on the other lamp types. A.) Growth of the Arc Light B.) Timeline C.) Historical Applications D.) Inventors List A.) Growth of the Arc Light First Installations in Europe:

The first work with arc lamps was in the laboratory until the 1870s. Most of the work on arc lamps occurred in Europe during the pre1870s period. The main reason why arc lamps were not on the streets until that time is because a reliable dynamo was needed to produce DC power. Prior to 1870 most people used batteries to power the arc lamp. It was a difficult sell to clients because the batteries were not reliable, very expensive, and had a short life. Gramme's dynamo set off a race in 1869. In only a few years many inventors had unique dynamo designs of their own, and it took a short time to adapt the dynamo to work with arc light systems. Finally the arc light was ready for commercial sales. Left: the Yablochkov (Jablochkoff) candle was the first product, it had two carbon rods side by side (see illustration) separated by a plaster, it burned down from the top with the arc begin kept at the idea gap width. This was a way to get around the problem of feeding two carbon rods together in the regular lamp model. It was a simple operation to replace the rods when finished. The device produced an unsteady light that would range from dark purple to bright white. Sometimes it went out, which would lead to the entire series of lamps (up to six) going out. But it was a important step and the first commercially successful electric light.

The first installations were small ( 1-12 lights). The first installation was the lighting of the Mill of Heilmann, Ducommun, and Steinlein at Mulhausen, France (1875). Another installation was the lighting of La Chapelle railway station (France). Paris holds the record for the first street lighting in 1875. The Thames Embankment (London) was lit in 1878 (Using Jablochoff Candles). Despite these installations a lot of work needed to be done. Understanding of electric power was crude, and there was no way to measure power, or adequately control power systems to get more performance. First Installations in North America: Charles F. Brush developed the first commercially successful arc light systems in North America in Cleveland, OH (at Public Square 4/29/1879). His design of arc light AND dynamo (a dynamo generates DC power) was proven to be the best of several experimental systems by different inventors at an exposition at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1977. This event also inspired E.W. Rice Jr., Edwin J. Houston, and Elihu Thomson to create arc light systems of their own. When Thomas Edison traveled through Ohio, he was inspired by Brush's arc light work and he initiated his own electric light work. Brush improved not only the ability to add more lights to the circuit, but

developed the Brush Dynamo. This dynamo was amonumental achievement in power generation. The Electric Light's first commercial success, and happier whales. In 1880 authorities in Wabash, Indiana discover that the Brush electric arc light system for it's streets would cost $800 less per year than gas lighting. Also they stated that they would get greater volume of illumination. This was the beginning of the revolution across the world to switch to the electric light. By proving to be economically better than oil and gas the future was set. This also stopped the complete eradication of certain whale species that provided the oil, these whales were already close to extinction in the 1880's due to over-hunting. Gas used in lights was made from coal. The coal was shipped to cities, and cooked in a crucible, a gas resulted that supplied the town's light systems. This process was very dirty, it produced massive amounts of carbon monoxide and a coke remains that was then shipped out for other uses as dirty combustible fuel. The electric arc light eliminated the need for plants that produced urban localized pollution. The Thomson-Houston Company Elihu Thomson founded the Thomson-Houston Electric Company which later absorbed the Brush Electric Company. E. W. Rice Jr. helped develop a voltage regulation system along with Thomson's lighting arrestor system, these combine with Brush's work made the most successful arc light system in the world. You can see the documentary on this early period of history via our E.W. Rice documentary. Growth of the Electric Light: 1890 - There were more than 130,000 arc lamps in use in the United States. Today the evidence of the great number of carbon arc lamps is mostly gone. Most of the bodies of the lamps were melted down for scrap for World War 1. B.) DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE: The carbon arc lamp is the root of more than 50% of all electric lamps today as you can see in the diagram below, however it took almost 70 years to get a reliable carbon arc lamp out of the developmental stage.

1705 - Francis Hauksbee (France) builds a gas discharge lamp using an evacuated glass tube charged with static electricity. The tube glowed faintly. 1800 - Volta (Italy) develops the first battery in the western world, this immediately sparks a period of testing of electricity and discovery from Russia to England. ~1800 - Vasily Petrov (Russia) first publicly describes the phenomena of the electric arc. The year of this is not yet confirmed. ~1800 or 1809 - Sir Humphry Davy (England) - used charcoal sticks and batteries to make the first experimental arc lamp, the year of this is under debate. 1840s - Jean Bernard Leon Foucault developed mechanisms for feeding carbon rods to make an arc light last longer. 1844 - first major public demonstration of an arc lamp in Paris 1875 - Pavel Yablochkov - Yablochkov Candle, a form of arc lamp is developed, this lamp is reliable and uses two carbon sticks side by side, which

solves the problem of figuring out how to keep the gap constant despite the burning away of carbon. Mechanical feeds were not sophisticated enough yet to be reliable. The first street lights are installed in Paris. The arc lamp enters the commercial stage. 1876 - Charles F. Brush, Wallace, Gramme - developed more advanced arc light designs and dynamos to go with it. 1877 -Charles F. Brush develops a better carbon stick by using 0.03% ash and electroplating the rods with copper to slow the stick's consumption. 1875 - Avenue de l'Opera is lit in Paris by Jablochkoff candles 1879 - Brush makes the first public lighting in the US at the Wanamakers department store in Philadelphia. 1879 - Brush developed the "Brush System" in which he could run a number of lights in series. Prior to this systems had one or a few lights. Inventors couldn't understand why electricity changed its properties by adding more lights, Brush understood the drop in voltage and current although he still had no way to measure electricity. It was later in the 1880s the importance of measurement allowed for better and more complex electrical devices. 1879 - William Wallace improves the life of the carbon rod with a design using copper and other ingredients. 1879 - Niagara Falls first lit by the electric light with 16 Brush arc lamps. 1879 - Elihu Thomson built a system that could handle up to 9 arc lamps in series with 10 Amps of current. 1880s - Elihu Thomson, Thomas Edison, Frantisek Krizik, Nikola Tesla, E.W. Rice - all improved the arc lamp by improving the carbon composition, mechanical feed device, and other components. 1890s - After the end of the War of Currents at Frankfurt, Germany in 1891, AC systems were built across the world from Argentina to Sweden within 10 years. Arc Lamps were adapted to run off of 110 and 220 Volt systems. 1904 - Charles P. Steinmetz improves the lamp by replacing the carbon electrode with magnetite, a type of iron ore. Lamp life shoots to 600 hrs or 30 hrs per inch of electrode. At the same time carbon rods only had a max life of 125 hours (for the average carbon rod refill length) 1915 - Elmer Ambrose Sperry develops a carbon arc spot light, first used in Navel applications. 1900-1980s - The carbon arc light is used for intense spot lights and some projectors, and is mostly replaced by xenon and metal halide lamps. The newer lamps are superior in that they do not give off open sparks due to having their arcs placed in a glass envelope, and they do not burn up quickly as the carbon sticks used in carbon arc lamps.

The many types of arc lamps offered by Charles Brush, taken from his company catalogue C.) Applications The carbon arc lamp was first used for street and factory lighting due to its extreme brightness which could easily flood a large area. It was used in early film production but proved to be dangerous to the actors. The arc lamp was used a projector light source for some time. This light did cause fires in

theaters due to the open sparks. The carbon arc lamp was replaced by the incandescent lamp starting in the 1880's. It was still used for street and factory lighting into the early 1900's. Elmer Ambrose Sperry developed a spotlight which was used by NAVY ships in 1915. Most of the hundreds of thousands of arc lamps and fixtures were scrapped for World War I. Some fixtures that remained in factories were gutted out and had sockets placed in them for the Mazda incandescent bulb. The End of the Carbon Arc Lamp Era Carbon arc lamps were being phased out after the 1910s. For general lighting the lamp was replaced by the 1920s and 30s in most cities. The lamp continued to be used for spot lights, film production lighting and film projector lamps. Most of the remaining carbon arc lamps ceased production by the 1980s due to the improved performance of the bright short-arc xenonand metal halide short-arc lamps. The new gas discharge lamps use a glass/quartz bulb filled with a nobel gas and other additives, they had longer life and more efficient than the carbon arc lamp. In the new lamps gas is ionized and free electrons smash into the additives (like metal halide) giving off photons with the same or better quality white light. The carbon arc lamp still exists in an extremely limited application. It is used for a color fastness test of textiles. The lamps are part of testing machines that use the lamp to make UV light in a controlled environment. See one of these machines as part of the this list at Shinyei Corporation. This video below shows an arc lamp working as part of a Magic Lantern (An early projection device that would project glass slides onto a large screen)

This video below shows arc lamps in a simple street lighting setup:

D.) Inventors List Many innovators worked on this lamp and we will mention the most prominent here with a photo. The fact is there are far too many to show in this one page,

but if you are interested there are entire books about the early development of the arc lamp. Many look back to the arc lamp days with a bit of romanticism. At the bottom of this list we will list some others not mentioned in the main list, however the main list with photos covers very important people in the world of the arc lamp.

1800 Sir Humphry Davy discovers the carbon arc in England while Vasily Petrov discovers it in Russia. The exact year of discovery is a matter of debate, it could be 1800 or 1802.
England

1800 Vasily V. Petrov discovers and demonstrates the carbon arc. Both Petrov and Davy used simple systems attached to primitive batteries.
Russia

1840s Jean Bernard Leon Foucault develops a mechanical feed device for the carbon rod, this is an important step towards a functional, commercial product. France

1875 Pavel Yablochkov had developed the Yablochkov Candle which was the first reliable carbon arc lamp and was used in Paris. He also developed power regulation systems, developed multilamp AC power circuits, and was the first commercial success in electric lighting. See his invention above. Russia/France

1879 William Wallace develops a copper plated carbon electrode and carbon doped with certain materials, his work resulted in a longer lasting carbon, he was one of many who were working on extending carbon life by adding materials to the carbon composition.
Connecticut, USA

1879 Charles F. Brush develops every part of the electrical system from new lamps to better dynamos (DC) and power conditioning. He becomes a commercial success with many installations in US cities.
Cleveland, OH, USA

1870s-1890s Elihu Thomson develops a successful arc lamp and power regulation system including an effective lighting arrestor. He forms the Thomson-Houston company which grows to be the largest company of the 1892 merger that formed the General Electric Company.
Lynn, MA, USA

1870s-1890s E.W. Rice Jr worked with Elihu Thomson, improving many parts of the arc light system both in DC and AC power.
Schenectady, NY, USA

1904 Charles P. Steinmetz develops an arc lamp with magnetite electrodes. This extends lamp life from 125 to 600 hours while only sacrificing a small amount of brightness. This meant that arc lamps needed to be "trimmed" (carbon replacement) with the same frequency as incandescent bulbs of the time. Later Steinmetz also invented the metal halide lamp.
Schenectady, NY, USA

1915 Elmer A. Sperry developed a high intensity spotlight up to 2 billion candlepower. Sperry's spotlights became vital for naval and air warfare during WWI and WWII.
Schenectady, NY, USA

Great engineer and arc lamp innovator Elihu Thomson mentions a few other names of important developers: Wallace Farmer, Weston, Wood, Hochhausen, and William Stanley who developed Westinghouse's arc lamp knowledge.

There are MANY others who helped develop the carbon arc lamp in many nations of Europe and North America between 1805 - 1915. Above we have listed the most prominent names, even so it was difficult to choose. History is a complex matter, the deeper you dig, the more ambiguity you find. If your interested in getting more detail about the fascinating history of the arc lamp we recommend book: A History of Electric Light and Power by B. Bowers and Men and Volts by John Hammond

The Xenon Short-Arc Lamp

The carbon arc lamp was replaced by the xenon short-arc lamp for many applications. The lamp makes an arc through ionized xenon gas in a very high pressure bulb. The high pressure give the lamp high efficiency. The light is highly intense and close in frequency to that of sunlight.The xenon arc lamp has the advantage over carbon arc lamps in that it does not need to be supplied with anything(like the rods), it does not flicker, it is more compact, and is less of a fire hazard because of having the arc enclosed. The lamp is not safe for technicians, the extremely high pressure (440 psi / 3040 kPa) makes it similar to a small grenade if broken. Glass and metal shrapnel have killed and injured people who dropped or ruptured the lamps on installation. Injuries extend to the less-than-intelligent playing with the lamps (see the carnage here on youtube). Ratings: 900 W - 15 kW Materials: Tungsten, molybdenum, ultra pure synthetic fused silica (Suprasil), Invar alloy Inventor: please contact us if you know History:

The lamp was invented in the 40s and was in commercial use by the 1950s as a film projector lamp. The lamp was developed by Osram. If you know the inventor/s of this bulb and have a photo please let us honor them by contacting us.

Above: a large xenon arc lamp used in modern Imax projectors. Photo: Atlant Right: A small xenon short arc bulb within plastic protective housing. Instructions say do not remove the housing until after the lamp is installed. See another video of different sized xenon short arc video is not an Edison Tech Center video so

History of the Incandescent Light (1802 - Today)

Introduction & Statistics Inventors and Developments Flashbulbs

How it Works History and Developments

The incandescent lamp was the second form of electric light to be developed for commercial use after the carbon arc lamp. It is the second most used lamp

in the world today behind fluorescent lamps. In this page we cover the traditional incandescent lamp. Halogen lamps are also incandescent light sources, but they have their own page here. The traditional incandescent bulb is not just a light source but has become a symbol of innovation. Advantages:
*Great for small area lighting *Good color rendering: CRI of 100 which is the best possible *Cheap to produce *No quantity of toxic materials to dispose of (like mercury, toxic alloys, or semiconductors) *Is easily used in strobe or dimming circuits

Disadvantages:
*Not energy efficient (90% of energy goes to heat, 10% makes visible light) *Traditional incandescent light bulbs are not useful for lighting large areas. It takes many to light a large area where as only one HID lamp can light a large open area. Halogen incandescent is useful for this purpose but it is not covered on this page.

Statistics *CRI 100 (best CRI possible) *Color Temperature - comes in all variations, but normally 2700 - 5000K *Lumens per watt 8 - 24 *Lamp life: 750 - 1000 hrs (standard household bulb) life can be greatly extended by using the lamp at a lower than normal voltage. Common uses: used everywhere for almost any application. From 1-10,000 W.

1. How it works

2. History and Developments

3.Inventors

Below: Video on the incandescent lamp. 6 min. YouTube must not be blocked by your server.

1. How it Works
Incandescent bulbs work by sending electric current through a resistive material. Typically materials will glow before reaching a melting point. Most materials will glow a dull red color when they reach around 525 Celsius. Most materials will catch fire or melt and can not make a good filament. Filaments are made from materials that have a high melting point. Tungsten can reach up to 3422 C before it melts. This is a higher temperature than any lamp will reach (except the carbon arc lamp which gets to 3500 C). Other materials have made good filaments or parts of filaments including tantalum, molybdenum, and carbon.

Why does the material emit light when you pass electrical current through it? When you pass current through a filament material, the resistance creates heat. Atoms in the material absorb energy. Electrons around the atoms are excited and temporarily reach an orbital which is further from the nucleus. When the electron orbit collapses to a lower orbital it ejects the extra energy in the form of a photon. Incandescence is thermal radiation. Heat is constantly emitted from objects around us, we just can't see it. When heat gets intense enough it reaches wavelengths that we can see. It starts with red and goes up the spectrum. The wavelength/color of the light is a matter of how much energy is being released and what kind of atom is doing the release. In an incandescent bulb most of the heat energy (90%) is emitted in the infrared spectrum which is just below visible light. This is also what makes the lamp inefficient. We don't use that part of the spectrum for the lamp's purpose, we only need the visible spectrum. This is a basic explanation. More can be read about the chemistry from your textbook or online.

2. History and Developments

The history of the incandescent bulb is centered on the development of filament types, so we will organize it by filaments. Platinum and Iridium Filaments: 1802 -1880's Humphry Davy created the first incandescent light by passing current through a platinum strip. It caused a glow and did not last long, but marked the beginning of incandescent light development. Experimenters continued over the next 70 years to use platinum and iridium. Frederick de Moleyns used a platinum filament in an evacuated glass tube to make a light bulb. It was only mildly successful due to a blackening of the bulb, which blocked light output. Combustion of the filament material and blackening on the upward side of the bulb was a frustrating consistent problem for early lamp inventors. The platinum material was also expensive.

Early inventors knew that making a vacuum in a bulb would help reduce blackening and lengthen bulb life, the problem was ways to better create a vacuum had to be developed. Heinrich Geissler was one of the early physicists to develop a good pump and system. Still, early bulb inventors 1802 - 1879 lacked a system good enough. As is typical with invention, many know the answer, but other technological developments are needed to move forward.

Blackening of the incandescent bulb, video:

Carbonized Threads and Paper: 1860's - 1883 Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison independently hit success by making a bulb that would last a reasonable number of hours. Swan used carbonized paper to create his early filaments. Edison first used carbonized sewing thread as a filament, he managed to get it inside a vacuum. This made his first practical lightbulb. He used carbonized sewing threads until 1880. Then he used paper bristol board. (Carbonized paper) This move increased lamp life to 600 hours. Why Edison Triumphed: Joseph Swan worked on the incandescent light idea since 1850. Swan did not succeed because he used only a partial vacuum in his bulb. He also used a carbonized paper filament. Edison figured out how to create a pure vacuum in his bulbs. He did this by heating up the bulb at the same time that he pumped out the air. He used a Sprengle pump.

The Sprengle Pump to the left was used by Swan and Edison to pump air from the first light bulbs. Read more about the pump by clicking on the Scientific American article above.

Above: See our collection of bulbs at the Edison Tech Center on display.

Bamboo brings great improvements: 1883: As the story goes Edison was using a fan on a hot day, he unwound fine bamboo on a fold-out oriental fan. He carbonized it and tested it as a filament. He send assistants to Japan to find the type of bamboo that was used in that fan. They found it and imported the filaments. The first bamboo filaments had a square shape because they were cut from larger pieces using a certain process. He electroplated the bamboo directly to the lead in wires to avoid the high cost of platinum clamps. Later he used carbon paste to adhere the bamboo to the lead in wires. Our video about early Edison Bulbs with cellulose and bamboo filaments:

Cellulose Filaments: 1881 - 1904 Sir Joseph Swan developed the cellulose filament in 1881, however Edison continued to use bamboo filaments until the creation of General Electric in 1892. Cellulose filaments were replaced by Willis Whitney's GEM lamp filaments. Video about the Mazda Bulb:

The move to metallic filaments: The Era of Tantalum

Tantalum Filaments: 1902 - 1911 Tantalum was the first metal filament on the market. Like tungsten it has a very high melting point, so it can be heated to incandescence without destroying itself like most metals. Tantalum was so vastly superior to all other filaments that it became king from 1902 1909. After 1909 the sintered tungsten lamp really began to gain popularity. The arrival of a ductile tungsten finally ended the reign of tantalum. Werner von Bolton(a Georgian living in Germany) discovered that using tantalum for a filament allowed for lower energy consumption and greater brightness. Siemens and Halske Company produced these bulbs. The tantalum filament became successful and became a major threat to General Electric's sales. This stimulated GE to invest more in it's recently formed research lab to try to come up with a better lamp. Left: A lit Tantalum Lamp on display at Siemens Forum in Munich, Germany Below: The hooks used to hold filament

Left: The WOTAN Lamp, made with a drawn-tungsten WOTAN was a trademarked name owned by Siemens & Halske GEM Lamp Metallized Filaments: 1904 - 1907 Willis Whitney of GE Schenectady develops a way to bake a carbon filament at 3000 C to create a filament that behaves much like metal. This improves efficiency by 25 %. This filament was used in the famous Mazda lamps which produced a very bright light. Sintered Tungsten Filaments: 1904 -1911 In 1904 sintered tungsten is developed by Alexander Just and Franz Hanaman (Austria). Tungsten improves the lamps efficiency by 100 % and is used by GE in 1907 after it buys the rights for it. *Tungsten and Molybdenum filaments were used by A.N. Lodygin (Russia) in a 1900 "Exposition Universelle" in Paris Ductile Tungsten Filaments: 1908 - today William D. Coolidge had been working with tungsten which proved to be a superior material for a long lasting lightbulb over any other material to date. Previous sintered tungsten filaments had been efficient, but brittle and not practical. Coolidge figured out how to heat tungsten and draw it out through heated dies of decreasing diameter. The result of his work was a workable, bendable (ductile) wire that was high strength and made a great filament material. The new material was used in bulbs in 1911 and this is

still used today. See our inventors section below for more advancements in the incandescent bulb. The future of incandescent lamps: The Incandescent lamp has been in the average household for more than 120 years. In the last decade a major initiative to develop more efficient lightbulbs has replaced much of the world's bulbs with compact fluorescents. There has been significant resistance to bans on the incandescent bulb

3. Inventors and Developments

1802 Sir Humphry Davy discovers incandescence in a platinum wire. He also is the discoverer of the first electric lamp type: the carbon arc lamp. England

1841 Frederick de Moleyns patented a incandescent lamp within a glass bulb and a partial vacuum. He is one of many people working on the incandescent light bulb from 1840 to the 1870s. Many French and Germans contributed to research on the incandescent bulb. Moleyns is exceptional and helped others build on the idea. England

1879 Sir Joseph Swan began working with the incandescent light long before Edison, however his biggest breakthrough was developed at the same time as Edison. Swan used carbonized paper as a filament in a partially evacuated bulb, this lasted several hours, which was a great achievement compared to the scores of inventors who couldn't get incandescence to last. Swan continued to improve the bulb. England

1879 Thomas Edison is the most celebrated of incandescent inventors. He was able to succeed in creating the first reliable (therefore marketable) light bulb. His bulbs made after 1880 lasted a whopping 600 hours. He then hired lots of talented engineers and created the world's most famous "invention factory". West Orange, New Jersey

1902 Werner von Bolton discovered that using tantalum for a filament increased efficiency, durability and bulb life. The age of metallic filaments had begun and Siemens and Halske held the patent. Germany
Photo: Siemens

1904 Willis Whitney counters the threat from the tantalum lamp with the GEM lamp: a unique process which creates a metallized filament. The GEM lamp is used in the Mazda series by General Electric. Schenectady, New York

1904 Alexander Just and Franz Hanaman patent a sintered tungsten filament. Tungsten proves to be a good material, however it is fragile and hard to work with. It is a step towards the modern bulb Austria

1908 William D. Coolidge revolutionizes the ligthbulb by figuring out how to make tungsten ductile. This allows the lightbulb to be more durable, long lasting, and easily coiled (coiling is key to making more surface area and therefore more light). The invention is implemented in 1911. His invention is used in many other lamp types later on including the fluorescent, halogen, MH, mercury vapor, and other lamps. Schenectady, New York

1912 Irving Langmuir developed 3 important improvements to the bulb: He worked with Lewi Tonks to develop an argon & Nitrogen-filled bulb, he also developed the tight coiled filament, and pioneered a thin molecular hydrogen coating on the inside of the bulb. All of these dramatically improved the bulb. Schenectady, New York

1921 ? from Toshiba Corporation developed the double coiled filament. This greatly improved luminous efficacy and helped efficiency. Notice on the photo left how the large coil is made of another coiled wire. Help us honor this pioneer by letting us know his name. Japan

1925 / 1947 Marvin Pipkin developed the frosted etched bulb and later the silica coating on the inside of the bulb. These advancements helped diffuse the light, reduce glare with only 35% loss in light output. Cleveland, Ohio

Above: a Philips flashbulb with magnesium filament Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Flashbulbs
The traditional flashbulb is another type of incandescent lightbulb. Early flash bulbs used a aluminum, zirconium, or magnesium filament or aluminum foil. Current was passed through the material and it glowed. The melting and boiling point of aluminum, magnesium or zirconium is so low that the lamp would vaporize the metal, which further intensified the brightness. Early lamps would last one flash and had to be replaced. Early flashbulbs often had an Edison type screw in thread like a regular lightbulb. Later lamps could last a few flashes. Later on disposable flash bulb arrays were developed to allow many flashes without switching bulbs. One of the greatest challenges in developing a flash bulb is not the bulb itself, but timing the bulb to match the camera shutter. This improved with the development of solid state electronics in the 1950s. Modern flashbulbs found on most cameras are no longer incandescent bulbs. They are tiny xenon arc tubes. An electric arc is formed through xenon gas. These have the great advantage of being reusable. They have the disadvantage of being a shorter duration than incandescent flash bulbs. This means they have to be more precisely time 1927 ?? at General Electric and Johannes Ostermeier both independently develop the first non-magnesium electric flashbulb. It is much safer than older bulbs. The General Electric Product is called the Sashalite. This light replaced dangerous magnesium powder lights. The new lamps burned aluminum foil in a bulb filled with oxygen. Ostermeier produced a product called the Vacublitz. Schenectady, New York

1934 Philips Corp. Unknown inventor created the first modern flashbulb: it has a wire in an evacuated bulb. The wire burns ups in a more effective way than aluminum sheets of foil. This design has not changed much. Nederlands

1960s ?? at Kodak develops the flashcube which has four single use small flash bulbs. The cube can be rotated to use the new bulb. Rochester, New York

1968 John D. Harnden Jr. develops a both a static electronic photoflash assembly (1968) and disposable flashbulb lamp(1971) along with Bill Kornrumpf. The array of flash bulbs removes the need for replacing the bulb. This long plastic bar of bulbs was popular in the 1970s and 80s. Harnden also developed precise timing devices for the bulbs that used semiconductors which were new at the time. Schenectady, New York

1968 William P. Kornrumpf developed the photoflash bulb assembly and disposable flashbulb array for low cost cameras along with John D. Harnden. Schenectady, New York

the resolution/quality is limited).

SODIUM VAPOUR LAMPS

Sodium Lamps were first produced commercially by Philips in Holland in 1932. There are two kinds of sodium lights: Low Pressure (LPS) and High Pressure (HPS). These lamps are mostly used for street lighting as well as industrial uses. The lamp works by creating an electric arc through vaporized sodium metal. Other materials and gases are used to help start the lamp or control its color. See the photos lower on this page for more details.

THE LOW-PRESSURE SODIUM LAMP

The LPS lamp was the first sodium lamp to be developed. It is known by its signature monochromatic yellow color. It is mostly used in Europe since it did not appeal in other markets due to its poor CRI or color rendering. It is among the most efficient lamps in the world because it uses all the current it gets to create light at the most sensitive color (frequency) to the human eye. An incandescent lamp in contrast creates light at all frequencies from Infrared (non-visible) to UV at the other end of the spectrum. The energy used to make non-visible light is a waste of energy since it does not help do the principle job of an electric light. The LPS lamp is also called a SOX lamp (SO for sodium) Advantages:
- Very efficient lamp - Powerful lamp for use of large areas - Despite a warm up time of 5-10 minutes it restarts immediately if there is a brownout - Lumen output does not drop with age (such as in LEDs or incandescents)

Disadvantages:
- Worst color rendering of any lamp - Sodium is a hazardous material which can combust when exposed to air (such as if the bulb is broken in the trash)

Statistics: CRI -44 Color Temperature: 1800 100-190 lumens per watt

Bulb life: 18,000 hrs

Common Uses: Outdoor lighting, security lighting, long tunnel lighting (the light seems to give less fatigue in tunnel driving than white lights flashing by at close proximity).

1. How the LPS lamp Works

The LPS Lamp is mostly in Europe for outdoor lighting. They create a monochromatic yellow light. In the diagrams below you will see how as it starts it creates a red glow due to the neon gas. The neon gas lights at a lower temperature. As the temperature increases the sodium begins to vaporize and the lamp turns to a pure yellow.

An LPS with it's yellow glow

Argon has a lower glow voltage, argon helps the smaller lamps start at a lower voltage. The larger LPS lamps used in street lighting for the most part do not use argon.

2. LPS Development and Inventors:

Low pressure sodium lamps were invented first in 1920 by Arthur H. Compton at Westinghouse. The first lamp was a round bulb with two electrodes on each side. The solid sodium metal remained on the bottom center of the bulb. When heated up the metal would vaporize and the lamp would glow yellow. The lamp had to be designed in a sphere because after the metal cooled when the lamp was turned off, the sodium has a property of migrating to the coolest part of the bulb where it solidifies. A tube design would be more particle, similar to the neon lamp which had already been developed by 1920, but it was found that the sodium would migrate to the outer ends of the tube, and there the sodium would destroy the electrodes over time as well as not get hot enough to vaporize. The problem with Compton's models is that the highly corrosive sodium would attack and blacken regular silica glass.

Marcello Pirani led the next major advancement in the low pressure sodium lamp. He worked for Osram in Germany where he developed a sodium-resistant glass in 1931. He used an oven to heat the lamp, which vaporized the sodium and started the lamp.

1932 - The first sodium lamps for commercial sale were made by Philips. Philips has not released the names of the individuals who did the monumental work of developing a reliable sodium lamp ready for widespread use. The first lamps haLamps are presented in the order of chronological developmentd a removable outer jacket with a vacuum between glass to insulate the bulb to keep it hot enough to keep the sodium in vapor form. Later dArc
Incandescent Nernst Neon Mercury Vapor Sodium Lamp Fluorescent Halogen EL LED MH Induction

evelopments include: -Integrating the outer vacuum jacket as a bulb with the inner discharge tube inside, therefore eliminating the separate outer jacket and improving insulation properties. -Indium tin coating on the inside of the outer jacket to reflect infrared (heat) waves back to the bulb, keeping it warmer and improving reliability in cold weather.

High pressure sodium lamps In a high pressure sodium lamp light is produced by sodium vapour, the gas pressure being about 15 kPa. The golden-yellowish emission spectrum applies to wide parts of the visible area. The CRI is low ( 20), but the luminous efficacy is high. The most common application today is in street and road lighting. Luminous efficacy of the lamps is 80-100 lm/W, and lamp life is 12 000 h (16 000 h). The CCT is 2000 K. An improvement of the CRI is possible by pulse operation or elevated pressure but this reduces the luminous efficacy. Color improved high pressure sodium lamps have CRI of about 65 and white high pressure sodium lamps of more than 80. Their CCT is 2200 and 2700, respectively. Advantages of high pressure sodium lamp very good luminous efficacy long lamp life (12 000 h or 16 000 h) high luminous flux from one unit for street and area lighting Disadvantages of high pressure sodium lamp

 low CCT, about 2200 K low CRI, about 20 (color improved 65, white 80) starting and re-starting time 2-5 min

High pressure sodium lamps, elliptical bulb 100 W and 250 W, tubular bulb 250 W and white high pressure sodium 100 W.

Electrodeless lamps
The burning time of discharge lamps is normally limited by abrasion of electrodes. It is possible to avoid this by feeding electrical power into the discharge inductively or capacitively. Although the principles of electrodeless lamp have been understood for over a hundred years, electrodeless lamps were not introduced into the commercial market until the past decades. The main reasons were the lack of reliable and low cost electronics, and avoidance of electromagnetic interferences. With the great development in electronics and consequently introduction of electronic ballasts, the electrodeless lamp has become ready to be introduced to commercial market for the general purpose lighting.

Induction lamp
The induction electrode-less fluorescent lamp is fundamentally different from the traditional discharge lamps, which employ electrodes as electron source. The operating frequency of induction lamp is usually in the range of hundreds of kHz to tens of MHz. A special generator or ballast is needed to provide high frequency power. Without electrodes, energy coupling coils are needed for the energy coupling into the plasma. A long lamp life and good lumen maintenance can be achieved with these lamps because of the absence of electrodes. The filling of the discharge vessel consists of mercury (amalgam) and low pressure krypton. Like in fluorescent lamps, the primary emission (in UV-region) is transformed with a phosphor coating into visible radiation. Typical parameters are: lamp wattages 55-165 W, luminous efficacy of systems 60-80 lm/W, CCT 2700-4000 K, CRI 80. The long lamp life of even 100 000 h is useful for applications in inaccessible locations (road tunnels, factory halls).

Compact fluorescent lamps (electrodeless)

Some models of CFLs are electrodeless lamps. Their advantages over common CFLs are instant switching and good performance with switching cycles.

Metal Halide lamps:

To increase the luminous efficacy and CRI of mercury high pressure lamps, it is useful to add mixtures of metal components to the filling of the discharge tube. These additives emit their own line spectra in the arc discharge, leading to an enormous diversity of light color. For sufficient vapour pressure, it is better to use metal halides (compounds with iodine or bromine) instead of elemental metals. When the vapour enters the high temperature region of the discharge, molecules dissociate, metal atoms are excited and radiation is emitted.

The applications of metal halide lamps reach from electric torches (10 W miniature variants) to diverse purposes in indoor and outdoor lighting (wattages up to 20 kW). The lamps are available with luminous efficacy typically from 50 to 100 lm/W, CCT value from 3000 to 6000 K and CRI from 70 to over 90. The lamp life is typically from 6000 h to 12 000 h. Advantages of metal halide lamps Good luminous efficacy Alternatives with good color rendering available Different color temperatures available. Disadvantages of metal halide lamps Expensive Starting and re-starting time 2-5 min Differences in CCT between individual lamps and changes of CCT during burning hours. These differences are much reduced with ceramic metal halide lamps.

Metal halide lamps, nominal power from left 150 W, 400 W, 75 W and 70 W.

Metal halide lamps offer a number of advantages that favor their use in ever broader areas of application. These include high luminous efficacy, a long service life and good colour rendering. Because the light is generated in a small space, the discharge lamps almost correspond to a spot light source, with advantages in terms of light control and brilliance of the illumination. The means of generating light is technically complicated. The key principles regarding the operation of these lamps and instructions for their use are listed below. These application instructions address a large number of users, such as luminaire designers, lighting planning engineers, operating device developers and retailers. Naturally, not all users will find all sections relevant, but the aim has been to cover the interests of as many users as possible. Similar to high-pressure mercury lamps or high-pressure sodium lamps, metal halide lamps also belong to the group of discharge lamps. Low pressure discharge lamps include fluorescent lamps and compact fluorescent lamps. In discharge lamps, light is generated by a gas discharge of particles created between two hermetically sealed electrodes in an arc tube. After ignition, the particles in the arc are partially ionized, making them

electrically conductive, and a plasma is created. In high intensity discharge lamps, the arc tube is usually enclosed in an evacuated outer bulb which isolates the hot arc tube thermally from the surroundings, similar to the principle of a thermos flask. But there are also some discharge lamps without outer bulbs, as well as lamps with gas-filled outer bulbs. In contrast to lowpressure discharge, there is high pressure and a high temperature in a discharge tube. In an arc tube, gas discharge works through excitation of the luminous additives (metal halide salts) and the mercury is excited by the current flow. Visible radiation characteristic for the respective elements is emitted. The mixture of the visible radiation of the different elements results in the designed colour temperature

and colour rendering for a particular lamp. In the operating state, the mercury evaporates completely. The other elements involved are present in saturated form at the given temperatures, i.e. they only evaporate in part; the rest is in liquid form at the coolest point in the arc tube. The fraction of the filling that has evaporated depends on the temperature of the coolest point on the arc tube wall and also varies for the different filling components. Changes to the temperature of the arc tube wall can change the composition of the metal halides in the discharge, thus also changing the colour properties of the lamp.

Starters
Starters are used in several types of fluorescent lamps. When voltage is applied to the fluorescent lamp, the starter (which is a timed switch) allows current to flow through the filaments at the ends of the tube. The current causes the starter's contacts to heat up and open, thus interrupting the flow

of current. The lamp is then switched on. Since the arc discharge has low resistance (in fact negative voltage-current characteristics), the ballast serves as a current limiter. Preheat fluorescent lamps use a combination of filament/cathode at each end of the lamp in conjunction with a mechanical or automatic switch that initially connects the filaments in series with the ballast and thereby preheat the filaments prior to striking the arc. These systems are standard equipment in countries with voltage level of 230 V (and in countries with voltage level 110 V with lamps up to about 30 watts), and generally use a glow starter. Electronic starters are also sometimes used with these electromagnetic ballasts. The automatic glow starter consists of a small gas-discharge tube, containing neon and/or argon and fitted with a bi-metallic electrode. When starting the lamp, a glow discharge will appear over the electrodes of the starter. This glow discharge will heat the gas in the starter and cause the bimetallic electrode to bend towards the other electrode. When the electrodes touch, the two filaments of the fluorescent lamp and the ballast will effectively be switched in series to the supply voltage. This causes the filaments to glow and emit electrons into the gas column. In the starter's tube, the touching electrodes have stopped the glow discharge, causing the gas to cool down again. The starter additionally has a capacitor wired in parallel to its gas-discharge tube, in order to prolong the electrode life. While all starters are physically interchangeable, the wattage rating of the starter should be matched to the wattage rating of the fluorescent tubes for reliable operation and long life. The tube strike is reliable in these systems, but glow starters will often cycle a few times before letting the tube stay lit, which causes undesirable flashing during starting. If the tube fails to strike or strikes but then extinguishes, the starting sequence is repeated. With automated starters such as glow starters, a failing tube will cycle endlessly, flashing as the lamp quickly goes out because emission is insufficient to keep the lamp current high enough to keep the glow starter open. This causes flickering, and runs the ballast at above design temperature. Some more advanced starters time out in this situation and do not attempt repeated starts until power is

reset. In some cases, a high voltage is applied directly. Instant start fluorescent tubes simply use a high enough voltage to break down the gas and mercury column and thereby start arc conduction. These tubes can be identified by a single pin at each end of the tube. Low-cost lamps with integrated electronic ballast use this mode even if it reduces lamps life. The rapid start ballast designs provide filament power windings within the ballast. They rapidly and continuously warm the filaments/cathodes using low-voltage AC. No inductive voltage spike is produced for starting, so the lamps must be mounted near a grounded (earthed) reflector to allow the glow discharge to propagate through the tube and initiate the arc discharge. In some lamps a starting aid strip of grounded metal is attached to the outside of the lamp glass.

What is Color Temperature?

The color temperature of a lamp (bulb) describes how the light appears when the human eye looks directly at the illuminated bulb. Color temperature is measured by a unit called the kelvin (K), a scale that starts at absolute zero (-273 degrees C). Imagine heating a bar of steel and observing the color of the bar at increasing temperatures. At some point the bar will appear to glow a dull red. As heat is added, the dull red turns to yellow, then to white, then to bluish white, finally to blue. A light bulb that produces light perceived as yellowish white will have a color temperature of around 2700K. As the color temperature increases to 3000K - 3500K, the color of the light appears less yellow and more white. When the color temperature is 5000K or higher the light produced appears bluish white. The color temperature of daylight varies, but is often in the 5000K to 7000K range. When the desired lighting effect is "warm", use light sources in the 2700K - 2800K range. Most common incandescent light bulbs will produce light in this color temperature range. An exception is the incandescent light bulb with a neodymium coating. The neodymium filters out the yellow and red wavelengths of the visible spectrum leaving predominately blue wavelengths. So even though neodymium light bulbs have a 2800K color temperature, the light they produce appears to be bluer - similar to daylight and to other light bulbs that product light with color temperatures in the 5000K or higher range. When the desired effect is neutral or white, use light sources in the 3000K - 3500K range. For a slightly bluer effect use 4000K. To give the perception of daylight (bluish white light), use light sources with a color temperature of 5000K or higher. It is important to note that color temperature is not the same as color rendering. The color temperature of a light source does not describe or predict the ability of that light source to render color accurately.

What is Color Rendering Index (CRI)?

Color rendering describes how a light source makes the color of an object appear to human eyes and how well subtle variations in color shades are revealed. The Color Rendering Index (CRI) is a scale from 0 to 100 percent indicating how accurate a "given" light source is at rendering color when compared to a "reference" light source. The higher the CRI, the better the color rendering ability. Light sources with a CRI of 85 to 90 are considered good at color rendering. Light sources with a CRI of 90 or higher are excellent at color rendering and should be used for tasks requiring the most accurate color discrimination. It is important to note that CRI is independent of color temperature. Examples: A 2700K ("warm") color temperature incandescent light source has a CRI of 100. One 5000K ("daylight") color temperature fluorescent light source has a CRI of 75 and another with the same color temperature has a CRI of 90. To further understand the physics of color rendering, we need to look at spectral power distribution.

The visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum is composed of radiation with wavelengths from approximately 400 to 750 nanometers. The blue part of the visible spectrum is the shorter wavelength and the red part is the longer wavelength with all color gradations in between.

Spectral power distribution graphs show the relative power of wavelengths across the visible spectrum for a given light source. These graphs also reveal the ability of a light source to render all, or, selected colors. Below see how a typical spectral power distribution graph for daylight.

Notice the strong presence (high relative power) of ALL wavelengths (or the "full color spectrum"). Daylight provides the highest level of color rendering across the spectrum. Compare the daylight spectral power distribution with that for a particular fluorescent lamp.

The most obvious difference is the generally lower level of relative power compared to daylight - - except for a few spikes. All wavelengths (the "full spectrum) are again present but only certain wavelengths (the spikes) are strongly present. These spikes indicate which parts of the color spectrum will be emphasized in the rendering of color for objects illuminated by the light source. This lamp has a 3000K color temperature and a CRI of 82. It produces a light that is perceived as "warmer" than daylight (3000K vs. 5000K). It's ability to render color across the spectrum is not bad, but certainly much worse than daylight. Notice the deep troughs where the curve almost reaches zero relative power at certain wavelengths. Here is another fluorescent lamp.

This spectral power distribution looks generally similar to the one above except it shows more power at the blue end of the spectrum and less at the red end. Also, there are no low points in the curve that come close to zero power. This lamp has a 5000K color temperature and a CRI of 98. It produces light that is perceived as bluish white (similar to daylight) and it does an excellent job of rendering colors across the spectrum. Note: all incandescent and halogen light bulbs, by definition, have a CRI close to 100. They are excellent at rendering color. However, except for some halogen bulbs, most incandescents produce a warm 2800K color temperature. The only way to achieve the bluish white appearance of daylight with incandescent bulbs is to use bulbs coated with neodymium. However, these bulbs have a CRI much lower than 90. They are not good for accurate color rendering across the spectrum.