Who invented xenon arc lamp

The electric arc light eliminated the need for plants that produced urban localized pollution. The Thomson-Houston Company. You can see the documentary on this early period of history via our E. Rice documentary. Growth of the Electric Light:. Today the evidence of the great number of carbon arc lamps is mostly gone.

Most of the bodies of the lamps were melted down for scrap for World War 1. The tube glowed faintly. The year of this is not yet confirmed. Mechanical feeds were not sophisticated enough yet to be reliable. The first street lights are installed in Paris. The arc lamp enters the commercial stage. Brush , Wallace, Gramme - developed more advanced arc light designs and dynamos to go with it. Brush develops a better carbon stick by using 0. Prior to this systems had one or a few lights.

Inventors couldn't understand why electricity changed its properties by adding more lights, Brush understood the drop in voltage and current although he still had no way to measure electricity. It was later in the s the importance of measurement allowed for better and more complex electrical devices. Rice - all improved the arc lamp by improving the carbon composition, mechanical feed device, and other components.

Arc Lamps were adapted to run off of and Volt systems. Steinmetz improves the lamp by replacing the carbon electrode with magnetite, a type of iron ore. Lamp life shoots to hrs or 30 hrs per inch of electrode. At the same time carbon rods only had a max life of hours for the average carbon rod refill length - Elmer Ambrose Sperry develops a carbon arc spot light, first used in Navel applications. The newer lamps are superior in that they do not give off open sparks due to having their arcs placed in a glass envelope, and they do not burn up quickly as the carbon sticks used in carbon arc lamps.

The many types of arc lamps offered by Charles Brush, taken from his company catalogue. The carbon arc lamp was first used for street and factory lighting due to its extreme brightness which could easily flood a large area.

It was used in early film production but proved to be dangerous to the actors. The arc lamp was used a projector light source for some time.

This light did cause fires in theaters due to the open sparks. The carbon arc lamp was replaced by the incandescent lamp starting in the 's. It was still used for street and factory lighting into the early 's. Most of the hundreds of thousands of arc lamps and fixtures were scrapped for World War I.

Some fixtures that remained in factories were gutted out and had sockets placed in them for the Mazda incandescent bulb. Carbon arc lamps were being phased out after the s. For general lighting the lamp was replaced by the s and 30s in most cities. The lamp continued to be used for spot lights, film production lighting and film projector lamps.

Most of the remaining carbon arc lamps ceased production by the s due to the improved performance of the bright short-arc xenon and metal halide short-arc lamps. In the new lamps gas is ionized and free electrons smash into the additives like metal halide giving off photons with the same or better quality white light.

The carbon arc lamp still exists in an extremely limited application. It is used for a color fastness test of textiles. The lamps are part of testing machines that use the lamp to make UV light in a controlled environment.

See one of these machines as part of the this list at Shinyei Corporation. Many innovators worked on this lamp and we will mention the most prominent here with a photo.

The fact is there are far too many to show in this one page, but if you are interested there are entire books about the early development of the arc lamp. Many look back to the arc lamp days with a bit of romanticism. At the bottom of this list we will list some others not mentioned in the main list, however the main list with photos covers very important people in the world of the arc lamp. The exact year of discovery is a matter of debate, it could be or Petrov discovers and demonstrates the carbon arc.

Both Petrov and Davy used simple systems attached to primitive batteries. He also developed power regulation systems, developed multi-lamp AC power circuits, and was the first commercial success in electric lighting. See his invention above. Connecticut, USA. Brush develops every part of the electrical system from new lamps to better dynamos DC and power conditioning. He becomes a commercial success with many installations in US cities. Steinmetz develops an arc lamp with magnetite electrodes.

This extends lamp life from to hours while only sacrificing a small amount of brightness. This meant that arc lamps needed to be "trimmed" carbon replacement with the same frequency as incandescent bulbs of the time. Later Steinmetz also invented the metal halide lamp. Sperry developed a high intensity spotlight up to 2 billion candlepower. Great engineer and arc lamp innovator Elihu Thomson mentions a few other names of important developers: Wallace Farmer, Weston, Wood, Hochhausen, and William Stanley who developed Westinghouse's arc lamp knowledge.

Above we have listed the most prominent names, even so it was difficult to choose. History is a complex matter, the deeper you dig, the more ambiguity you find. If your interested in getting more detail about the fascinating history of the arc lamp we recommend book: A History of Electric Light and Power by B.

Bowers and Men and Volts by John Hammond. The Xenon Short-Arc Lamp. The carbon arc lamp was replaced by the xenon short-arc lamp for many applications. The lamp makes an arc through ionized xenon gas in a very high pressure bulb.

The high pressure give the lamp high efficiency. The light is highly intense and close in frequency to that of sunlight. The xenon arc lamp has the advantage over carbon arc lamps in that it does not need to be supplied with anything like the rods , it does not flicker, it is more compact, and is less of a fire hazard because of having the arc enclosed.

Glass and metal shrapnel have killed and injured people who dropped or ruptured the lamps on installation. Injuries extend to the less-than-intelligent playing with the lamps see the carnage here on youtube.

Ratings: W - 15 kW Materials: Tungsten, molybdenum, ultra pure synthetic fused silica Suprasil , Invar alloy Inventor: please contact us if you know. The lamp was invented in the 40s and was in commercial use by the s as a film projector lamp. The lamp was developed by Osram. Above : a large xenon arc lamp used in modern Imax projectors. Photo: Atlant Right: A small xenon short arc bulb within plastic protective housing.

For most optical microscopy applications, the quartz alloy used in xenon lamps is typically doped with cerium compounds or titanium dioxide to absorb ultraviolet wavelengths that serve to generate ozone during operation. Typical fused silica transmits light at wavelengths down to nanometers whereas doping the glass limits lamp emission to wavelengths above nanometers. Xenon lamps equipped for ozone-free operation are often designated with the code OFR to indicate their class.

Similar to the construction process in mercury lamps, the quartz used for xenon lamp envelopes is manufactured from the highest quality tubing, which is carefully formed on a lathe into the finished bulb via air expansion techniques. The anode and cathode electrodes in xenon arc lamps are fabricated from forged tungsten or specialized tungsten alloys doped with thorium oxide or barium compounds to reduce the work function and increase the efficiency of electron emission.

Only the purest grades of tungsten are used in xenon arc lamp fabrication. Because of the complexity in machining electrodes with such high-purity grades of tungsten, ceramic tools are required throughout the process to avoid the introduction of contaminants. After fabrication, the cathode is brazed onto a molybdenum rod or plate for support, but the anode shaft consists of solid tungsten because it is subject to much higher temperatures due to constant bombardment of electrons emitted by the cathode.

Both electrodes are ultrasonically cleaned and heat-treated to remove residual lubricants and contaminants before being sealed into the lamp bulb. The design of xenon lamp cathodes has received a considerable amount of attention aimed at increasing stability of the arc during operation.

In conventional lamps using thorium-doped tungsten electrodes, the arc emission point on the cathode intermittently shifts due to localized variations in electron emission from the surface, a phenomenon known as arc wander see Figure 3 a.

This artifact, which increases in severity as the tip wears, leads to momentary fluctuations in lamp brightness referred to as flare when the arc relocates to a new region on the cathode Figure 3 b. Arc flutter describes the rapid lateral displacement of the arc column by convection currents produced as the xenon gas is heated by the arc and cooled by the inner walls of the envelope Figure 3 c. In addition, the sharp tips of thorium-doped cathodes tend to wear at an accelerated rate compared to cathodes fabricated with advanced rare-earth oxide alloys.

Lamps featuring advanced cathode technology are often referred to as super-quiet and have demonstrated high short-term arc stability of less than one-half percent, as well as reduced drift rates of less than 0. Long term analysis of high performance cathode operation indicates that wear is significantly reduced, and shifting of the arc point over the average lamp lifetime is virtually eliminated.

As a result, after a super-quiet xenon lamp is initially aligned with other elements in the microscope optical train, it is generally unnecessary to re-adjust the position over the entire operating life span of the lamp.

During the sealing stages of lamp assembly, the cathode and anode are fastened to strips of very thin molybdenum ribbon in a graded seal that compensates for thermal expansion differences between the quartz tubing and the metallic electrode shafts. A functional seal is produced by heat-compression of the quartz tubing to the molybdenum foil in a lathe placed under vacuum to prevent oxidation.

The high compression temperatures enable the molten quartz to collapse around the molybdenum foil to form a gas-tight seal. After sealing the electrodes in the quartz lamp housing and annealing the assembly to remove strain, the envelope is loaded with high-purity The lamp is then cooled with liquid nitrogen to solidify the xenon gas and the fill tube removed to completely seal the envelope.

After returning to room temperature, the finished lamp is pressurized as the xenon returns to the gaseous state. The final stage of the xenon lamp assembly process consists of adding nickel-plated brass terminals termed ferrules or bases to each end of the bulb. Many ferrule designs include a flexible lead wire inside the base that connects to the sealed electrodes in order to eliminate the possibility of lamp failure due to stress or strain between the electrode shaft and the brass ferrule.

Ferrules are attached to the sealed ends of the quartz envelope using carbon-graphite tape or a heat-resistant adhesive. A passivated compression ring is also used to ensure a tight junction between the ferrules and the envelope tube.

After the ferrules are installed, an ignition wire is wrapped around quartz envelope at the edges of the elliptical bulb see Figure 2. The wire is composed of thin, pure nickel and serves to create a localized electrical field within the envelope to assist in stimulation of electron ionization and flow at lamp startup.

The design of lamphouses for xenon arc lamps is critical to the longevity and performance of the lamp. Because arc lamps expand due to the excessive heat generated during operation, only one end of the lamp should be rigidly clamped to the housing; the other end can be secured with a flexible metal strip or covered with a heat sink and tethered to the appropriate internal electrical terminal through a cable see Figure 4. Excessive temperatures rapidly lead to oxidation of electrode leads, produce accelerated envelope wear, and increase the potential for premature lamp failure.

In the case of low power lamps less than watts , convection cooling in a well-ventilated lamphouse is usually sufficient, but lamps of higher power often require a cooling fan. The high trigger voltages 20 to 30 kilovolts necessary to ignite xenon lamps require use of high-quality insulation materials in the lamphouse electrical wiring assembly and the power supply cable should be capable of withstanding voltages exceeding 30 kilovolts. In addition, the power cable should be as short as possible, unbundled, and placed away from the microscope frame and other metallic instruments such as computers, filter controllers, and digital cameras in the immediate vicinity.

Most high-performance xenon lamphouses incorporate an internal reflecting mirror coupled to an output collector lens system that produces a collimated light beam of high intensity.

Collection reflector designs range from simple concave mirrors to complex elliptical, spherical, aspherical, and parabolic geometries that more effectively organize and direct the lamp emission to the collector lens and subsequently through the microscope.

The use of an electroformed conical reflector can achieve a nominal collection efficiency up to 85 percent, a vast improvement over conventional back-reflector systems, which have efficiencies ranging from 10 to 20 percent.

Specialized reflectors can be readily designed by simple ray-tracing techniques. The coatings on all collection mirrors should be dichroic to enable infrared heat wavelengths to pass through. Additionally, the solid-state detectors in electronic cameras, particularly those in CCD imagers, are also particularly sensitive to infrared light, which can fog the image if the appropriate filters are not inserted into the light path.

Xenon lamphouses generally follow a standard configuration with the arc lamp positioned at the focal point of the collector lens so that wavefronts leaving the source are gathered and roughly collimated to exit the lamphouse as a parallel bundle Figure 4. Accessories UV Safety Equipment. Resources Literature Light Sources 1. Related Products. Sign In. Email Address: Required. Password: Required. Password Reset. Enter your email address below to reset your account password. Please Note: Your reset password applies to newport.

Email Verification Required. Cart Merge. Remove Product. Remove this product from your comparison list? Check Order Status. Provide an order number and postal code to check the status of an order or download an invoice for an order that has shipped. Login to view your complete order history. Order Number: Required. Sign In Required. To access this and other valuable technical resources, please sign in or register for a new online account.

Add to Cart. Model: xenon-arc-lamps. Shop at Newport. Ultra-High Velocity Learn More. VAT ID has invalid format.

It will not be saved with the order when submitted. Request Quote Continue Shopping. Cart Loading Xe, Ozone Free. Xe, UV-Enhanced. Low Power Q Series Xe. Low Power Xe.