Lightbulb gasses

[MidnightViper88]

Can anyone help me here? This is going out on my interest...I wanna find out the type of gasses used in various lightbulbs identified by their light emission color...These are what I'm looking for...

•(If there is a gas for) Pure white
•Cool colors (Blue/green tinting)
•Warm colors (Yellow/orange tinting)

And also, would these be the same general bulbs be used even on different things like street lamps and automobile headlamps?

[Psythik]

Well from a recent lab experiement in my sophmore chemistry class, I've learned what elements make light when electricity is sent through them. We experimented with a lot of elements but here's what I remember:

Hydrogen: Pink
Argon: Bright Yellow
Neon: Red
Mercury: Light Blue

[k_rock923]

Scyth, those are when electrons move from a higher principal energy level back to the ground state of the atom. I always thought that the gas was the same in all of the traffic light bulbs and that the only difference was the color of the glass or plastic that they were shining through.

[MidnightViper88]

2 practical light gasses just came to my mind; Halogen and xenon...

Anyone know their light emissions?

[PulseDriver]

Magnesium is used to make fireworks silver I think, but I have no idea if it would work for lightbulbs.

Doh..

[k_rock923]

Halogen? That's not an element.

Atomic spectra of xenon:



Modern incandescent bulbs use a tungsten filament and have small amounts of argon and nitrogen

A gas discharge lamp uses an electric discharge in a gas inside that lamp (often high pressure mercury, or sodium vapor, or even neon) to produce visible light directly.

[MidnightViper88]

I wasn't asking for elements; I was asking for lightbulb gasses...

[SSJ4 Gogitta]

Helium: Gold
CO2: White

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa980107.htm


also:

It should be explained that in sodium-halogen or incandescent-halogen lamps, the halogen gas does not produce any of the light. Instead, halogen gas is used to increase the life expectancy of the lamp by helping to keep gas atoms from entering the lamp and shortening the lamps life. (Helium and Hydrogen atoms can pass through glass.) The word "halogen" is frequently used in a generic way to describe a variety of gasses that are used to displace other gases, including the Halon gases used for fire-supression. Lamps containing halogen invariably contain two globes or bulbs, one inside the other, and the contents of each bulb is sealed from the other.

The use of halogen allows incandescent lamps to be operated at a higher filament temperature, which means more of the energy leaving the filament will be visible light rather than being below the visible spectrum, energy that is just perceived as heat, without significantly reducing the operating life of the lamp.

By modern standards, both types of sodium lighting are unsuitable for almost all indoor lighting, although sodium halogen lighting has been used in warehouses and briefly as a classroom lighting system in a few pilot programs in schools in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of these school systems have since been replaced with fixtures and lamps that produce a better quality light.

http://nemesis.lonestar.org/referenc.../overview.html

[Psythik]

Originally posted by k_rock923
ScYtH, those are when electrons move from a higher principal energy level back to the ground state of the atom. I always thought that the gas was the same in all of the traffic light bulbs and that the only difference was the color of the glass or plastic that they were shining through.

Whatever. I never pay attention in class.

[PulseDriver]

XENON:

Uses
The gas is used in making electron tubes, stoboscopic lamps, bactericidal lamps, and lamps used to excite ruby lasers that generate coherent light. Xenon is used in the nuclear energy field in bubble chambers, probes, and other applications where a high molecular weight is of value. The perxenates are used in analytical chemistry as oxidizing agents. 133Xe and 135Xe are produced by neutron irradiation in air cooled nuclear reactors. 133Xe has useful applications as a radioisotope. The element is available in sealed glass containers of gas at standard pressure. Xenon is not toxic, but its compounds are highly toxic because of their strong oxidizing characteristics.

Title Picture: xenon is used in super bright lamps used for deep sea observation

[Schmeet]

Gasses don't generally make the colour of the lightbulb. The gases are used to keep the filament from burning away. If there's no oxygen, it can't burn away.

Saying that, Neon gives off different colours doesn't it? Or is the standard colour pink and they just use colour filters?

[MidnightViper88]

Originally posted by k_rock923
I always thought that the gas was the same in all of the traffic light bulbs and that the only difference was the color of the glass or plastic that they were shining through.

Wait, I think this might be true...

Sylvania, a lightbulb company, make these halogen headlights Cool Blue and Silverstars for car headlamps...The have a blue tint on the bulb, so it filters out the "yellowish" light that an untinted halogen bulb would produce and emits a bright white light...The Cool Blue emits a slight blue tint, but the Silverstars are super white, so the bulb is overdriven (Since the tinting somewhat takes away from the brightness)...

Some cars also have HID (high intensity discharge) lighting...They emit a a super bright white light, but directly on the bulb, they give off a blue tint, and with some cars, they "change" colors at different angles (They appear green, gold, purple, and blue)...I think HID lights are different from standard halogen bulbs, so I saw this on the internet...

http://www.visteon.com/technology/au...lighting.shtml

High Intensity Discharge (HID) / Xenon Lighting utilizes the light of a plasma discharge arc to generate light. Each lamp contains an HID light source, electronic ballast, an optical reflector and lens. Instead of a glowing filament (contained in traditional Halogen sources), a high voltage charge from the igniter causes an arc to light between the electrodes of the light source. The blue-white light that is produced provides optimal illumination for driving, enabling the driver to see more clearly.

Visteon's High Intensity Discharge (HID)/Xenon Lighting delivers a wide, well-defined beam pattern for improved illumination using less power compared to conventional Halogen-based headlamps.

For some reason, the tinting that HID gives off, I must have mistaken as some similar kind of bulb with a different type of gas from halogen lights...As for the tinting, I'm still not sure how that's done, but it's definitly different from traditional bulbs...

There are also LED lights...I've only seem them in uses for red light (Brake lights on public transport buses, taillights in some high-end cars in placement of standard light bulbs), but I'm not sure if you could make them shine a different color light...LEDs are purely electrical, though (No filament)...

[PulseDriver]

LED lights? O_o someone really uses diods for breaking lights?

Yes, a diod is special. But the diods on public busses gotta be some real mean diods lol

[k_rock923]

There are also green and blue LEDs

[PulseDriver]

LED comes in many colors. Most computers have Yellow/Red/Green, thre more rare colors are Silver/Blue/Purple and Cyan. If you don't have a LED on your monitor that changes color depending on what signal your monitor gets (or doesn't get) have a REAL old monitor. Mine is green when power and signal is available, and yellow while the monitor is standby.

The rare colors are much more expensive to make, so it's not so usual on electronics, but they do appear a lot on the high-end stuff.

EDIT: And the one that changes color is controled by the voltage the diod is reciving, emitting colors by voltage.

[MidnightViper88]

Originally posted by PulseDriver
LED lights? O_o someone really uses diods for breaking lights?

*Braking

And yes...Cadillac uses them on their new line of cars...A few other cars use them, like the Infiniti G35, and the 3rd brake light on the Mazda 6-Series sedan are a row of LEDs...The Chrysler ME Four-Twelve concept supercar encorperates many rows of LEDs for it's brake lights, as well as a few rows in the headlights for the turn signals/driving lights...

They're much brighter than standard light bulbs, have a dramatically longer lifetime and consume less energy...LEDs also shine faster than a standard lightbulb- I've noticed this a few times on cars that have lightbulb taillights and the 3rd light is a set of LEDs, and the LEDs will light up a few milliseconds faster before the lightbulbs light up when the brake pedal is applied...

[k_rock923]

Well, I assume they have less resistance, but that's not enough to make a difference that your eyes would be able to see. I wonder what's causing that?

[beanboy89]

I have seen some traffic lights that use LED's and they are very bright. LED's are becoming more used in traffic signals because they are brighter, last longer, and more energy efficent.

[MidnightViper88]

Originally posted by k_rock923
Well, I assume they have less resistance, but that's not enough to make a difference that your eyes would be able to see. I wonder what's causing that?

Well, a single LED obviously isn't going to be much, but when used in clusters, they can be damn bright altogether when compared to standard lightbulbs...

[Hollow]

Halogens are the 15 group in the periodic table, 1 short of the nobel gases.

The color of the LED is a function of the band gap of the semiconductor that its made of. I suspect that faster reaction time is a result of the difference in how the light is produced. Consider, a standard incandescent bulb produces light via resistive heating. A think bit of high resistance material has enough current run through it to heat it until it glows. This heating takes some amount of time. A LED produces light from droping electrons from the conductive band to the non-conducting band, no heating needed. The movement of electrons in most good semiconductors is really quick.

As an interesting asside, each semiconductor that fluoresces produces a light that is proportional to the size of the band gap, so in a quantum dot, the color of light produced is a function of the size of the dot, and not just the material.

[General Geoff]

Originally posted by k_rock923
Well, I assume they have less resistance, but that's not enough to make a difference that your eyes would be able to see. I wonder what's causing that?

Elements in conventional lighting take up to half a second to fully heat up and emit their full light potential. LEDs take microseconds. That's where the "instant-on" perception comes from.

[SSJ4 Gogitta]

LED's also have a "knee voltage", the minimum required voltage to begin conducting. "Standard" silicon LED's have a 0.7v knee voltage, and germanium have a 0.3v knee voltage (though germanium doesn't last as long, and it burns hotter if I remember right). LED's also have resistance, but not much, which is why they'll usually have a resistor in series with the LED (so it won't burn up as soon as you turn it on due to the current). Always used 1 kilo-ohm resisters in class (2+ years ago) in series with our standard red LEDs. Not sure what kind of LED's are used in groups for vehicles and stop lights, so I can't really tell you what kind of knee voltage it has, or the resistance of the LED.

But, generally, LED's are VERY bright (I've seen some in the ten's of thousands of candlepower), and usually last about 16,000+ hours.