Tag: fluorescent lamps

Can the light from a fluorescent lamp be collimated into a beam of parallel rays?

While a converging lens or a concave mirror can always direct light from a bright source in a particular direction, the degree of collimation (the extent to which the rays become parallel) depends on how large the light source is. The smaller the light source, the better the collimation. Spotlights and movie projects use extremely bright, very small light sources to create their highly collimated beams. Since fluorescent lamps tend to be rather large and have modest surface brightnesses, I’m afraid that you would be disappointed with the best beam that you could create from that light. The ultimate collimated light source is a laser beam. In effect, the identical photons of light in a laser beam all originate from the same point in space, so that the collimated beam is as close to perfectly collimated as the nature of light waves will allow.

What is the difference between the magnetic and electric ballasts used in fluorescent lights?

Fluorescent lights work by sending an electric current through a vapor of mercury atoms in what is known as an electric discharge. Unfortunately, electric discharges are very unstable—they are hard to start and, once started, tend to draw more and more current until they overheat and damage their containers and power sources. Thus a fluorescent light needs some device to control the flow of current through its discharge. Since normal fluorescent lamps are powered by alternating current—that is, the current passing through the discharge stops briefly and then reverses direction 120 times each second in the United States and 100 times each second in many other countries (60 or 50 full cycles of reversal, over and back, each second respectively)—the current control device only needs to keep the current under control for about 1/120 of a second. After that the current will reverse and everything will start over.

Older style fluorescent lights use a magnetic ballast to control the current. This ballast consists essentially of a coil of wire around a core of iron. As current flows through the wire, it magnetizes the iron. Because energy is required to magnetize the iron, the presence of the iron inside the coil of wire slows down the current when it first appears in the wire by drawing energy out of that current. This effect, typical of devices known to scientists and engineers as “inductors”, prevents the current passing through the ballast and then through the discharge from increasing too rapidly once it starts. The magnetic ballast is able to slow the current rise through the fluorescent lamp long enough for the alternating current to begin reversing directions. In fact, as the current in the power line begins to reverse, the ballast begins to get rid of the energy stored in its magnetized core. This energy is used to keep the discharge going longer than it would on its own. The ballast thus smoothes out the discharge so that it stays under control and emits an almost steady amount of light.

Modern electronic ballasts still control the current through the discharge, but they use electronic components to achieve this control. Just as an electronic dimmer switch can control the current through an incandescent light bulb in order to adjust the bulb’s brightness, such electronic devices can control the current passing through the discharge in a fluorescent lamp to keep that current from growing dangerously large.

How does the pressure inside a mercury vapor lamp affect its spectral distribution, particularly as a source of ultraviolet light?

At low pressure, a mercury vapor lamp emits mostly short wavelength ultraviolet light at a wavelength of 254 nanometers. This light comes from the dominant atomic transition in the mercury atom, between its first excited state and its ground state. However, as the pressure and density of mercury atoms inside the lamp increase, two things happen. First, the high density of mercury atoms in the lamp makes it difficult for the 254-nanometer light to escape from the lamp. Each time a 254-nanometer photon (particle of light) is emitted by one mercury atom, a nearby mercury atom absorbs it. As a result, the 254-nanometer light becomes trapped inside the lamp and diminishes in brightness. With so much energy trapped inside the lamp, the mercury atoms are able to reach more highly excited states than at low density. Second, frequent collisions between the now highly excited mercury atoms allow those mercury atoms to emit wavelengths of light that are normally forbidden in the absence of collisions. The mercury atoms begin to emit light at a wide variety of wavelengths, including substantial amounts of visible light. That’s why a high-pressure mercury lamp is a brilliant source of visible light—most of the ultraviolet light is trapped by the mercury vapor and a substantial fraction of the light emerging from the lamp is visible light.

Can you get a tan from an ultraviolet light bulb?

Yes. Tanning appears to be your skin’s response to chemical damaged caused by ultraviolet (high energy) light. Each photon of ultraviolet let carries enough energy to break a chemical bond in the molecules that make up your skin. Exposure to this light slowly rearranges the chemicals in your tissue. Some of the byproducts of this chemical rearrangement trigger a color change in your skin, a change we call “tanning”. Any source of ultraviolet light will cause this sequence of events and produce a tanning response. However, the different wavelengths of light have somewhat different effects on your skin. Long wavelength ultraviolet (between about 300 and 400 nanometers) seems to cause the least injury to cells while evoking the strongest tanning response. Short wavelength ultraviolet (between about 200 and 300 nanometers) does more injury to skin cells and causes more burning and cell death than tanning. However, all of these wavelengths have enough energy to damage DNA and other genetic information molecules so that all ultraviolet sources can cause cancer.

When the temperature is sub-zero (e.g., -40°), is it necessary to heat the electrodes or the gas or both for the tube to light? What is the optimum tube temperature with respect to efficiency?

Fluorescent lamps do not operate well in extreme cold. Below about 15° C (59° F), the density of mercury atoms in the tube’s vapor is too low to produce efficient light. While the tube also contains inert gases that allow it to start at almost any temperature, the scarcity of mercury atoms leads to a reduced light output. In any case, the electrodes must be heated to make them emit electrons to sustain the discharge.

The optimal internal temperature for a fluorescent lamp is about 60° C (140° F). The tube reaches this internal temperature when its outside is about 40° C (104° F). When the surrounding temperature exceeds 40° C, the tube begins to waste energy again because the density of mercury atoms in the vapor becomes too large.

Do fluorescent light fixtures emit magnetic fields? If so, would they be intense enough to affect diskette magnetic media?

While fluorescent light fixtures do emit magnetic fields, those fields are far too weak to affect magnetic media. Any electric current produces a magnetic field, even the current flowing through the gas inside a fluorescent tube. However, that field is so weak that it would be difficult to detect. Nearby iron or steel could respond to that weak magnetic field and intensify it, but the field would still be only barely noticeable. The only strongly magnetic component in a fluorescent fixture is its ballast coil. The ballast serves to stabilize the electric discharge in the lamp and relies on a magnetic field to store energy. However, the ballast is carefully shielded and most of its magnetic field remains inside it.

As for affecting diskette magnetic media, that’s extraordinarily unlikely. Even if you held a diskette against the ballast, I doubt it would cause any trouble. Modern magnetic recording media have such high coercivities (resistances to magnetization/demagnetizations) that they are only affected by extremely intense fields.

Where does the extra energy go after ultraviolet light goes through the phosphor coating? Is it lost as heat?

Yes. The extra energy is converted into heat by the phosphors. Their electrons absorb the light energy, convert some of that energy into heat, and then reemit the light. Since the new light contains less energy per particle (per photon) than the old light, it appears as visible rather than ultraviolet light.

Do neon lights have glass that is not colored, but has phosphors that emit a particular color?

A true neon light tube has completely clear (no color, no phosphor) glass surrounding a thin gas of neon atoms. When current runs through that gas, the neon atoms emit red light. In “neon tubes” that emit colors other than red (green, pink, orange, yellow, etc.), there is a layer of phosphor on the inside surface of the glass and mercury vapor inside the tube. These fluorescent tubes probably don’t contain any neon at all. You can see the light coming from the phosphor coating. In a true neon tube, you can see the light coming from the gas itself, well inside the glass tube.

Why do fluorescent emissions of light not produce more heat?

When an atom is excited by a collision and then emits energy as light, it converts most of the collision energy into light. Thus the gas in a fluorescent lamp experiences many collisions but emits most of the collision energy as light. The gas becomes slightly hot, but not nearly as hot as the filament of an incandescent bulb. The electrical energy arrives at the fluorescent bulb as a current of charged particles and most of this energy leaves the bulb as light, without ever becoming heat. However the electrical energy arriving at an incandescent bulb becomes heat first and then becomes light. The conversion of electrical energy to heat dramatically reduces the bulb’s ability to emit visible light efficiently.

Does the size of the bulb affect its intensity?

The intensity of a normal fluorescent light bulb is determined by how many times each second (1) a mercury atom can absorb energy in a collision and emit a photon of ultraviolet light and (2) a phosphor particle can absorb a photon of ultraviolet light and emit a photon of visible light. The first rate depends on how much current and electrical power can flow through the tube, which in turn depends on (A) the geometry of the tube and (B) the density of mercury vapor inside. As for (A), the long, thin tube seems to be the best geometry choice for a low voltage (120V) tube, producing a certain amount of ultraviolet light per cubic centimeter of volume. The longer or fatter the tube, the more electrical power it will require and the more ultraviolet light it will produce. As for (B), at room temperature, the density of mercury vapor is just about right. In very cold weather, the density drops quite low and the bulb becomes dim (thus fluorescents are not recommended for outdoor use in cold climates). Finally, the second rate (conversion to visible light) depends on the coating of phosphors on the inside of the tube. A tube that is too fat will send too much ultraviolet light at the phosphors and they will become inefficient. So a long thin tube is a good choice again. Each region of tube surface converts the light from a relatively small volume of mercury gas. Overall, the intensity of the bulb scales roughly with the volume of the tube. Big tubes emit more light than little tubes. One of the challenges facing fluorescent lamp manufacturers is in making small tubes emit lots of light. To replace an incandescent lamp with a miniaturized fluorescent, that miniaturized fluorescent must emit lots of light for its size. They’re getting better every year, but they aren’t bright enough yet.