High Pressure Mercury Vapour Lamp Spectrum

High pressure mercury vapor lamps are the oldest high pressure lamp type and have been replaced in most applications by metal halide and the high pressure sodium lamps.

High pressure mercury vapour lamp spectrum. Developed in the 1960s they are similar to mercury vapor lamps but contain additional metal halide compounds in the quartz arc tube. Another low pressure mercury lamp option is our standard and high output ho uvc lamps that use mercury vapor to emit uvc light. The mercury helps add a blue spectrum light to the pure yellow of the sodium. Low pressure and high pressure low pressure sodium lamps are highly efficient electrical light sources but their yellow light restricts applications to outdoor lighting such as street lamps where they are widely used.

High pressure sodium lamps producing up to 150 lumens per watt produce a broader light spectrum than the low pressure sodium lamps. Because their output is much more pleasant to look at they have replaced mercury vapor in streetlight applications. High pressure sodium lamps turn 50 of the electrical energy into visible light. In 1860 john thomas way used arc lamps operated in a mixture of air and mercury vapor at atmospheric pressure for lighting.

Later cooper hewitt mercury vapor tubes and historic fixture. The sodium vapor strikes an arc over 240 c. The german physicist leo arons 1860 1919 studied mercury discharges in 1892 and developed a lamp based on a mercury arc. 1906 higher pressure mercury vapor light in a fuzed quartz tube is developed kuch retschinsky siemens munich 1936 the modern high pressure mercury vapor lamp is developed type mb.

Charles wheatstone observed the spectrum of an electric discharge in mercury vapor in 1835 and noted the ultraviolet lines in that spectrum. Another version of the sodium arc lamp the low pressure sodium discharge lamp is the most efficient lamp known today in turning electricity into. High pressure mercury vapor arc lamps a type of high intensity discharge lamps are operated with a pressure of the order of one atmosphere and with much increased power densities so that more mercury is evaporated the high density of the vapor allows for light emission with a much higher radiance. Two varieties of such lamps exist.

A sodium vapor lamp is a gas discharge lamp that uses sodium in an excited state to produce light at a characteristic wavelength near 589 nm. Liquid mercury droplets collect at the lamp s cold spot once the mercury droplets reach their peak temperature maximum uvc output occurs. The lamp heats and the sodium is the last material to vaporize. They require a shorter arc length.