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g 8 external links toggle the table of contents neon lamp 41 languages العربية беларуская български català čeština dansk deutsch ελληνικά español eesti euskara فارسی suomi français हिन्दी hrvatski magyar bahasa indonesia italiano 日本語 қазақша 한국어 кыргызча മലയാളം bahasa melayu nederlands norsk nynorsk polski português русский simple english slovenčina svenska తెలుగు ไทย türkçe українська oʻzbekcha ўзбекча tiếng việt 粵語 中文 edit links article talk english read edit view history tools tools move to sidebar hide actions read edit view history general what links here related changes upload file permanent link page information cite this page get shortened url switch to legacy parser print export download as pdf printable version in other projects wikimedia commons wikidata item appearance move to sidebar hide from wikipedia the free encyclopedia for similar terms see neon lighting and neon sign light source based on gas discharge ne 2 type neon lamp powered by alternating current ac neon lamp schematic symbol a neon lamp also neon glow lamp is a miniature gas discharge lamp the lamp typically consists of a small glass capsule that contains a mixture of neon and other gases at a low pressure and two electrodes an anode and a cathode when sufficient voltage is applied and sufficient current is supplied between the electrodes the lamp produces an orange glow discharge the glowing portion in the lamp is a thin region near the cathode the larger and much longer neon signs are also glow discharges but they use the positive column which is not present in the ordinary neon lamp neon glow lamps were widely used as indicator lamps in the displays of electronic instruments and appliances they are still sometimes used for their electrical simplicity in high voltage circuits history edit a general electric ne 34 glow lamp manufactured circa 1930 neon was discovered in 1898 by william ramsay and morris 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 light from the tube told its own story and was a sight to dwell upon and never forget 1 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 tube lights 2 this patent became the basis for the monopoly held in the u s by his company claude neon lights through the early 1930s 3 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 that a u s patent was issued for the lamp in 1919 4 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 5 glow lamps found practical use as indicators in instrument panels and in many home appliances until the widespread commercialization of light emitting diodes leds in the 1970s 5 description edit voltage current characteristics of electrical discharge in neon at 1 torr with two planar electrodes separated by 50 cm a random pulses by cosmic radiation b saturation current c avalanche breakdown townsend discharge d self sustained townsend discharge e unstable region corona discharge f sub normal glow discharge g normal glow discharge h abnormal glow discharge i unstable region glow arc transition j electric arc k electric arc a d region dark discharge ionisation occurs current below 10 microamps f h region glow discharge the plasma emits a faint glow i k region arc discharge large amounts of electromagnetic radiation produced a small electric current for a 5 mm bulb diameter ne 2 lamp the quiescent current is about 400 μa 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 at a pressure of 1 20 torrs 0 13 2 67 kpa the lamp glow discharge lights at its striking voltage 6 the striking voltage is reduced by ambient light or radioactivity to reduce the dark effect some lamps were made with a small amount of radioactive material typically krypton 85 added to the envelope to provide ionization in darkness 6 the voltage required to sustain the discharge is significantly up to 30 lower than the striking voltage this is due to the organization of positive ions near the cathode 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 low pressure sodium vapor lamps use a neon penning mixture for warm up and can be operated as giant neon lamps if operated in a low power mode limiting current edit 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 in contrast larger sized lamps often use a specially constructed high voltage transformer with high leakage inductance or other electrical ballast to limit the available current see neon sign flicker flame edit when the current through the lamp is lower than the current for the highest current discharge path the glow discharge may become unstable and not cover the entire surface of the electrodes 7 this may be a sign of aging of the indicator lamp 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 stimulating sputtering 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 efficiency edit in comparison with incandescent lamps 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 lamp is converted into heat non incandescent light sources such as neon lamps fluorescent lamps and light emitting diodes are therefore much more energy efficient than normal incandescent lamps leds are the highest efficiency green neon lamps 8 can produce up to 65 lumens per watt of power input while white neon lamps have an efficacy of around 50 lumens per watt in contrast a standard incandescent lamp only produces around 13 5 lumens per watt 9 environmental effects edit the precise values of starting and maintaining voltages of neon lamps is subject to change due to several effects external light falling on the electrodes provides a source of ionization to start the lamp in total darkness lamps may reach a high and erratic starting voltage one measure to mitigate for this effect is to include a pilot lamp within the enclosure to provide an initial source of light lamps are also somewhat sensitive to external electrostatic fields temperature and aging lamps intended for use as circuit components may be specially processed to eliminate most of the initial aging effects 10 applications edit visual indicator edit switch on a power strip illuminated by a neon lamp even after the widespread availability of cheap leds small neon lamps are still widely used as visual indicators in electronic equipment and appliances due to their low power consumption long life and ability to operate on mains power voltage surge suppression edit neon lamps are commonly used as low voltage surge protectors but they are generally inferior to gas discharge tube gdt surge protectors which can be designed for higher voltage applications neon lamps have been used as an inexpensive method to protect rf receivers from voltage spikes lamp connected to rf input and chassis ground but they are not suitable for higher power rf transmitters 11 voltage tester edit dc left dc center ac right supplied to ne 2 type neon lamps most small neon indicator sized lamps such as the common ne 2 have a break down voltage of around 90 volts 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 lamps with series resistors a convenient low cost voltage tester by examining which electrode is glowing they can reveal whether a given voltage source is ac or dc and if dc the polarity of the points being tested voltage regulation edit the breakdown characteristic of glow discharge lamps allows them to be used as voltage regulators or overvoltage protection devices 12 starting around the 1930s general electric ge signalite and other firms made voltage regulator tubes switching element oscillator edit like other gas discharge lamps 13 the neon lamp has negative resistance its voltage falls with increasing current after the lamp reaches its breakdown voltage 10 14 15 16 therefore the lamp has hysteresis its turn off extinction voltage is lower than its turn on breakdown voltage 17 this allows it to be used as an active switching element neon lamps were used to make relaxation oscillator circuits using this mechanism sometimes referred to as the pearson anson effect 15 17 18 for low frequency applications such as flashing warning lights stroboscopes 19 tone generators in electronic organs 15 and as time bases and deflection oscillators in early cathode ray oscilloscopes 20 neon lamps can also be bistable and were even used to build digital logic circuits such as logic gates flip flop binary memories and digital counters 21 22 23 these applications were sufficiently common that manufacturers made neon lamps specifically for this use sometimes called circuit component lamps at least some of these lamps have a glow concentrated into a small spot on the cathode which made them unsuited to use as indicators to provide more repeatable lamp characteristics and reduce dark effect a rise in starting voltage observed in lamps kept in total darkness some types of lamp such as ne83 5ah include a small amount of a radioisotope to provide initial ionization 10 a variant of the ne 2 type lamp for circuit applications the ne 77 have three wire electrodes in the lamp in a plane instead of the usual two the third for use as a control electrode detector edit neon lamps have been historically used as microwave and millimeter wave detectors plasma diodes or glow discharge detectors gdds 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 citation needed once ubiquitous in microwave equipment more recently it has been found that these lamps work well as detectors even at sub millimeter 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 three 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 a us patent 24 alphanumerical display edit main article nixie tube the digits of a nixie tube 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 since at least the 1940s argon neon and phosphored glow thyratron latching indicators which would light up upon an impulse on their starter electrode and extinguish only after their anode voltage was cut were available for example as self displaying shift registers in large format crawling text dot matrix displays 25 or combined in a 4 4 four color phosphored thyratron matrix as a stackable 625 color rgba pixel for large video graphics arrays 26 multiple cathode and or anode glow thyratrons called dekatrons could count forwards and backwards while their count state was visible as a glow on one of the numbered cathodes 27 these were used as self displaying divide by n counter timer prescalers in counting instruments or as adder subtracters in calculators other edit in 1930s radio sets neon lamps were used as tuning indicators called tuneons and would give a brighter glow as the station was tuned in correctly 28 29 because of their comparatively short response time in the early development of television neon lamps were used as the light source in many mechanical scan tv 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 color edit unlit and lit neon lamps ne 2 type and their light spectrum neon indicator lamps are normally orange and are frequently used with a colored filter over them to improve contrast and change their color to red or a redder orange phosphor colored neon lamps they can also be filled with argon krypton or xenon rather than neon or mixed with it while the electrical operating characteristics remain similar these lamps light with a bluish glow ...
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