The Control of Luminous Color of the Discharge Lamps

Abstract

It is qualitatively verified by the energy conservation equation that high electron temperature is attained by the pulsed discharge with rapid current rise. In the glow discharge of the tube filled with mercury vapor and neon gas, luminous color of the positive column varies from the color close to red emitted by neon to blue of mercury by the square-wave pulsed discharge. Brightness of blue light is hundreds nits but that of red light is 100 nts at most. In the arc discharge, red light with strong brightness is easily obtained by square-wave pulses. On the other hand, blue light may be obtained at high frequency but the discharge becomes unstable at that frequency. Therefore, the current waveform alteration method is effective for luminous color control of the arc discharge.