1
Two Centuries of Electric Light Source Innovations
Maxime F. Gendre
Eindhoven University of Technology
Department of Applied Physics
Group Elementary Processes in Gas Discharge
N-Laag, G2.04, 5600MB Eindhoven
e-mail: mfgendre@tue.nl
web site: http://www.geocities.com/mfgendre
Light, and ways of producing it, undoubtedly belongs to the most fascinating and exciting kind of science
man has ever tried to master. To be more exact, light sources do not belong to one kind of science but
embody most of them. This is the development of vacuum techniques, of particular glasses, the purification
of gases, the refinement of metals, the elaboration of fluorescent substances, and other countless
engineering feats that allowed the making and improvement of all lamps we depend on today. Of course,
many of these breakthroughs were precisely driven by the need for better light sources, having longer
lifetimes, higher efficiency and better color properties. Yet, no one suspects that two centuries of scientific
research, discoveries, developments and
refinements stare upon us every time we
flip a switch to give birth to light.
It was exactly two hundred and one
year ago that Humphry Davy set the
foundations of the lighting industry with his
simultaneous discoveries of light emission
from incandescent metal wires and from
electrical arcs (also by W. Petrov). Until
1802, and since 400,000 BC, man had
relied solely on fire for his lighting needs.
The invention of the electric pile by
Alessandro Volta in 1800 opened a brand
new era of perspectives. His stacks of
copper, zinc and saltwater-soaked
cardboards allowed the circulation of steady
flows of electric currents that would
eventually spark the lighting revolution. A
revolution that was indeed slow to start.
The early years
The discoveries of Davy and Petrov had to wait five decades, the development of steam-powered dynamos
and the refinement of Volta’s battery, before becoming a practical reality. By 1850, Léon Foucault built the
first carbon arc lamp that was subsequently used for theatrical lighting, while four years later Einrich
Goebel, a German emigrant in the USA, made the first practical incandescent lamps. His sources were made
of carbonized bamboo filaments enclosed in evacuated perfume bottles, and were intended to illuminate the
shop window of his watch shop in New York city.
A third way of electric lighting emerged in 1856 from the discovery by Michael Faraday (England) of
the electric glow discharge in rarefied gasses (1831-35). This year, Julius Plücker and glass blower Enrich
Geissler started some systematic investigations of electrical discharges in evacuated glass tubes provided
with electrodes at each end. Subsequent experiments from Hittorf, Crookes and Golstein revealed that the
light color of the discharge changed upon the addition of other gases and vapors. This phenomenon was
Figure 1: Luminous efficacy evolution of light sources.
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
200
160
120
080
040
year
luminous
efficacy
(lm/W)
low-pressure sodium
high-pressure sodium
metal halides
low-pressure mercury
high-pressure mercury
Incandescent
major breakthrough
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finally understood in 1859, when Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchoff showed that each chemical element
emits a specific set of light colors, or spectral lines. This discovery eventually set the foundations of
spectroscopy. However, the inner working principles of these tubes were not understood until the 1920s,
when General Electric (GE, USA) scientist Irving Langmuir studied and made the first accounts of the
physics of ionized gases, and coined the term plasma to describe them. Then for this reason and others,
“Geissler” and “Crookes” tubes were relegated to the rank of lab curiosities until the beginning of the
twentieth century.
Figure 2: Various ways of light production.
On the side of carbon arcs, many improvements followed the lamp of Foucault. From the work of Foucault
and Dubosc, Serrin designed in 1859 a mechanical system to keep the arc at a given position despite the
unequal burning rate of the cathode and the anode. Later, Crompton in England and Wallace-Farmer in the
USA made an arc lamp that was regulated in voltage, thus permitting its use in series circuits. A further
major step followed in 1870, when Russian engineer Paul Jablochoff invented a self-regulating arc lamp
made of two close graphite rods separated by a layer of plaster of Paris. These lamps had a lifetime of 90
minutes, and a set of electrodes could not be re-ignited once it has been used. Despite its many drawbacks,
this kind of source led in 1878 to the first practical electric arc street lighting in Paris. Two years later,
Compton and Pochin in England and Friedrich von Hefner-Alteneck in Germany invented the differential
carbon arc lamp, which was power-regulated by monitoring both arc current and voltage. This system
eventually superseded Jablochoff’s lamp in street and industrial lighting.
Carbon arc systems were pretty crude, cumbersome, noisy, dirty and drew a lot of electrical power.
Beside this, its bright harsh light did not make it suitable for home lighting. The consequence is that many
persons looked for a better and softer way of producing light, and it was already of common knowledge that
a piece of carbon or metal heated by a current would do the job. However, things sound far simpler than
they are, and most of the attempts went up in smoke as all materials eventually caught fire. The culprit was
not so much the filament material than the poor quality of vacuum in early lamp prototypes.
Emergence and development of practical incandescent lamps
The development of incandescent filament lamps owes a lot to that of vacuum
pumps. In 1838 it was discovered that carbon brought to incandescent does
not consume in a air-free environment. From this knowledge the enclosed arc
lamp was born in 1893 (Jandus and Mark) and had a lifetime of 150 hours, or
three to five times that of lamps burning in free air.
Although it was known that platinum wires could be brought to
incandescence in open air for a long time (de la Rue, 1802), the need for
lamps with higher filament temperatures was felt. Carbon rods were studied
and used by J.W. Starr and M.J. Roberts between 1840 and 1854. The former
made in 1845 a lamp partially evacuated with a mercury column from
Torricelli’s barometer. Lodyguine, a Russian scientist, circumvented in 1856
the problem of poor vacuum by using an atmosphere of nitrogen instead. Two
hundred of his carbon rod lamps were successfully used for lighting the
harbor of St Petersburg. These first lamps, although successful in their own
right, did not show a good lifetime due to the presence of residual impurity
gases either in nitrogen or in vacuum.
Figure 3: Goebel’s lamps.
(ca. 1854, [1])
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Two major breakthroughs speeded up the development toward a commercially viable lamp. First, in 1865
Sprengel invented the mercury-drop vacuum pump, which was much better than von Guericke’s pump
developed around two hundred years before. This new device could evacuate a vessel down to at least a ten
thousandth of the atmospheric pressure (10 Pa), a factor hundred lower that previously achieved. L. Boem
then improved this pump in 1878, and reached a millionth of atmospheric pressure (10 mPa).
However, no matter how good lamps were pumped down, their lifetime was still too short (several
hours at best). The reason for this was discovered in 1879 by Francis Jehl and Thomas Edison (USA), who
found that gases occluded in lamp materials are released in vacuum over time. They then patented an
effective outgassing method, which consisted of heating the lamp during the pump-down process. In
February of this same year, Joseph Swan demonstrated a working incandescent graphite rod lamp before the
Royal Institution in Newcastle, England. This was eight months before Edison made his successful lowresistance
carbon filament lamp.
Historically, Swan was the first to achieve a
working carbon incandescent lamp. However, the
lamp lifetime was reportedly too short to be
commercially viable, which was not the case of
Edison’s lamp. Edison primarily used a U-shaped
carbonized cotton thread for the filament, later
replaced by a carbonized bamboo fiber which
boasted a luminous efficacy of 2 lm/W (ten times
lower that today’s standard filament lamps) and a
lifetime of 45 hours.
By the end of the 1870’s, the principles for
making a good incandescent lamp were
established, and it was then agreed that a lowresistance
filament was needed for its use in
parallel circuits. This set the requirements for
thinner filament, which are prone to burn out
quickly in poor vacuum. A better lamp thus called
for stringent improvements of the making procedures and the quality of the materials. Then from 1880 to
1883 many inventors worked at improving the quality of the carbon filament. Swan came up with a novel
process that consisted of squirting reconstituted cotton into threads, which were carbonized into very fine
carbon filaments of constant diameters. In 1894, A. Malignani introduced the use of red phosphorus as a
chemical getter, which maintains an excellent level of vacuum in the bulb throughout the lamp life.
The search for higher luminous efficacies and color temperatures pushed the research toward higher
filament temperature. Besides a shortening of their lifetime, this led to the severe blackening of lamp bulbs
as carbon has a high vapor pressure. Then, more refractory filament materials were needed in order to reach
more than 1200ºC. In 1893, Lodyguine investigated several metals, which included tungsten, while four
years later Carl Auer von Welsbach succeeded at making an osmium filament lamp that was put on market
in 1902. Followed in 1905, Dr Hans Kuzel made the
first (brittle) tungsten filaments, which were used in
new lamps marketed the year after. This novel source
pushed the lifetime up to 1000 hours and had an
efficacy of 8 lm/W (two times that of carbon filament
lamps), which eventually put an end to the osmium
lamp of Auer von Welsbach. In 1907, these lamps
were also made to operate on 110V mains and were
available up to the 500W size.
The next major breakthroughs happened from the
work of William Coolidge (General Electric, USA),
who in 1910 succeeded at making ductile tungsten filaments (as opposed to those made until then). Because
of its higher mechanical strength, this filament could be operated at a higher temperature, thus boosting the
Figure 5: Coiled-coil (top, 1933) and
simple coil (bottom, 1913) filaments. ([1])
Figure 4: Carbon filament lamps made by AEG from
Edison’s patents. (ca. 1900, [1])
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lamp efficacy to 10 lm/W. Two years later, Langmuir discovered the benefits of coiled tungsten filaments
operating in inert atmospheres (nitrogen, then argon-nitrogen mixture). The winding permitted a reduction
of the filament thermal losses, while the surrounding gas lowered its evaporation rate. Both combined, this
gave a lamp efficacy of 12 lm/W (first marketed by GE in 1913 in 500, 700 and 1000W sizes) and spelled
the end of all carbon and other straight filament lamps.
From this point on, the development of incandescent sources slowed down. In 1933, the first coiled-coil
tungsten filament lamp was made available for general lighting, although it was already in use since 1913
for projection purposes. The following years saw the introduction of krypton and xenon-filled lamps having
higher filament temperatures owing to reduced evaporation rates. The impact of these later lamps was
limited because the use of heavier gases did no lead to an efficacy increase higher than ten percents.
The last major advance in this domain happened at the
end of the 1950’s with the making by Zuber and Mosby
(GE) of the first viable tungsten lamp having a filling of
halogens. The presence of this class of elements allows a
chemical cycle to return evaporated tungsten atoms back to
its source. This permitted the use of ultra-compact packages
with 100% lumen maintenance throughout lamp life (no
bulb blackening). Also, its efficacy was raised to 20 lm/W
an later to 26 lm/W, thus making the most efficient
incandescent lamp yet.
These sources were first marketed in 1962 and triggered
an explosive development of compact lamps for general,
studio, automotive, flood lighting and movie projection. In
the 1980’s the first low voltage capsule lamps integrated or
not in compact reflectors were put on the market, while infrared-reflecting coatings were tried at the
beginning of the 1990’s in an attempt to further decrease the thermal losses of the filaments.
Their pathetic efficacies make incandescent lamps more suitable for heating purpose than lighting.
However, low production costs and simplicity of use (no current-limiting ballast required) ensures them
several decades of strong use at home and for commercial lighting. If the future see the development of
stable up-converting phosphors transforming infrared into visible light, or that of proper tungsten optical
band-gap crystals, then incandescent sources will be able to compete with vapor discharge lamps.
The rise of electric discharge and arc lighting
The only practical light sources worked out until 1860 where of incandescent nature. Even the brilliant
carbon arc emits its light mainly from the white-hot anode; the contribution from the arc being relatively
negligible. This year, on September 3rd, the Hungerford suspension bridge
in London was lighted with the first mercury arc lamps ever made. This
invention from J.T. Way was a carbon arc enclosed in an atmosphere of
air and mercury vapor. This was the first time the arc itself was the source
of light.
Mercury in light sources poses today an environmental threat and
work are carried out to suppress it. By then it made a lot of sense to use it,
as this is the only metal with an appreciable vapor pressure at room
temperature and can emit a large proportion of visible light when
energized in electrical discharges. This known fact led to the invention of
the low-pressure mercury lamp by Peter Cooper-Hewitt (USA) in 1901,
followed by a quartz atmospheric-pressure version by R. Küch and T.
Retschinsky (Germany) in 1906 (marketed in 1908 by Westinghouse).
These lamps performed stunningly well by 1900 standards, they had
efficiencies many times that of carbon filament lamps. The reason for this
resides in the light emission mechanisms that are different in these two
Figure 7: J.T. Way’s mercury
arc lamp. (1860)
Figure 6: Original 500W tungsten-halogen
incandescent lamp. (GE, 1959, [2])
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kinds of lamps. Incandescence arises from high thermal energy (i.e. lattice vibrations in the filament
material) that allows the emission of visible light. Consequently, a large portion of the emitted radiation is
in the infrared (95% of input energy in standard filament lamps). As opposed to this, an electric discharges
and arcs emit their light upon excitation and relaxation of gas or vapor atoms and molecules from electron
impacts. Thus more input energy can be radiated into useful visible light, leading to much higher
efficiencies (e.g. 35% visible light for low-pressure sodium vapor). However, the difference between the
two kinds of light sources lies also in their emission spectra. If incandescent lamps give excellent light color
renditions, electric discharge lamps at this time did not.
It was recognized that Cooper-Hewitt and Küch-
Retschinsky lamps emitted a bluish light deficient in
red, thus having poor color rendering properties. This
limited their use to streets, warehouses and industries.
This particular problem was addressed with seriesconnected
filament lamps that provided the additional
red light and stabilized the electrical discharge.
The extensive use of both types of mercury lamps
started when proper electrodes were developed. Until
the 1930’s, the original lamps had electrodes made of
mercury pools, which waste a lot of electrical energy
for the supply of electrons to the discharge.
High-pressure mercury lamps – the forerunners
The lamp from Küch and Retschinsky had a limited success due to many unsolved problems, like proper
electrodes, no tight quartz-to-metal seals and strong UV emissions leading to skin injuries. In the beginning
of the 1930’s, many lighting companies worked to address these problems and aimed at presenting an
atmospheric-pressure mercury lamp on the market.
In 1932, General Electric Company
of England (GEC) was the first to present
such a lamp under the tradename “Osira”.
Because no satisfactory sealing technique
between quartz and tungsten was found,
this lamp used a discharge tube made of
aluminosilicate hard glass. The relatively
low softening temperature of this material
limited the power loading of the electric
arc to 10-100 W/cm and restricted its use to the vertical position. This
later problem was eventually solved by the use of an electromagnet
that kept the arc straight when the lamp was horizontally operated.
The efficacy of such lamp was 30 to 40 lm/W, with a lifetime of a
couple of thousands hours. The low power loading of the arc and the
subsequent electrode power losses did not allow the making of
efficient low-power mercury lamps. Only the 400 and 250W sizes
were made available in this configuration. Also worth of interest,
these original lamps did not integrate any starting aid, like an auxiliary
probe. Thus GEC fitted each luminary with a small Tesla coil in order
to ignite the lamp. This was certainly the first time that an igniter was
used.
By the end of the 1930’s, Willem Elenbaas (Philips, the
Netherlands) theoretically predicted a rise of mercury lamp efficacy
with the increase of the arc power loading. This was effectively
verified after the invention of quartz-to-tungsten graded seals in 1935
Figure 10: The first high-pressure
mercury lamp. (Philips HP300,
1936, [5])
Figure 8: Küch and Retschinsky’s quartz
mercury arc lamp. (1906, [3])
Figure 9: The “Osira” mercury lamp. (GEC, 1932, [4])
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(Cornelis Bol – Philips). The next year, Philips was then able to market the first low-power high-pressure
(20 atmosphere) lamp, the HP300 (75W). This was followed by a breakthrough source: the water-cooled
SP500W working at 80 atmospheres (Philips). Not only these lamps had a better efficacy (40 and 60 lm/W
respectively), they also showed improved color rendering properties owing to the higher operating pressure.
The SP500W lamp was primarily designed and
used for film projection and floodlighting
applications, while the HP300 remained favored for
street and industrial lighting due to its still
insufficient emission of red light. This problem of
color rendering pushed the research toward colorimproved
lamps that used an integrated incandescent
filament (acting also as a ballast – 1941) and/or a
phosphor coating on the inner surface of the outer
bulb to transform useless ultra violets into red light,
thus filling the gap in the mercury spectrum.
In 1934, cadmium sulfide was found to be a suitable
fluorescent material, although it provided only a mild color
correction. The introduction of the color-corrected mercury
lamp was made possible with the elaboration of manganeseactivated
magnesium germanate and fluorogermanate in
1950, which improved greatly the color rendering index and
had a beneficial effect of the lamp efficacy. Three years
later, tin-activated orthophosphate was introduced, and in an
attempt to have proportionally more red emission, “deluxe”
lamps with a rosy glaze on the outer bulb were marketed for
a short while by a number of manufacturers (1956). Then in
1967, the hugely successful europium-activated vanadate
and phospho-vanadate phosphors inherited
from color TV technology were introduced
and are still in use today. These modern colorimproved
mercury lamps have a color
rendering index (CRI) of 65 against 15 for
clear lamps and a luminous efficacy of 60
lm/W.
The present design results from a large
number of improvements in the lamp structure
that occurred in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Among them are new kinds of quartz-to-metal
seals using 20 micron-thick molybdenum foils
pressed in quartz. Also, the changeover from
thorium to alkali oxide electrodes (Osram,
Germany) permitted a better lumen
maintenance throughout lamp life.
The last major innovation concerning
these lamps occurred in 1998 with the
invention of UHP (Ultra High
Figure 11: One of the first fluorescent highpressure
mercury lamps. (Philips, 1950, [6])
Figure 13: Various modern high-pressure mercury
lamps.
Figure 12: Super-high pressure mercury
lamps, then and now.
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Performance/Pressure) lamps by Hanns Fischer (Philips) for LCD projection purposes. These new sources
operate with an internal pressure of about 200 atmospheres, thus leading to a strong continuum in the
emission spectrum and a high arc power loading. These make this kind of lamp efficient (60 lm/W) and
optically small (0.7 mm arc gap), thus allowing for an excellent optical control.
Standard high-pressure mercury lamps (not UHP) are today on the brink of extinction because of the
environmental threat posed by mercury, and their relatively poor performances compared to metal halide
and high-pressure sodium sources.
Metal halide lamps – the legacy of mercury sources
It was recognized since the earliest days of mercury lamps that the lack of red light in their emission
spectrum impeded heavily on their widespread use. In 1906, Guercke already suggested to add some redemitting
metals to the lamp of Küch and Retschinsky in order to improve its color properties. M. Wolke
followed this procedure in 1912 and used cadmium and zinc. This turned out to be unsuccessful due to a
low lamp cold-spot temperature (600ºC), which led to an insufficient zinc and cadmium vapor pressures.
Also, these metals readily attacked the quartz envelope, thus rendering the lamp useless after a couple of
tens of hours of operation.
The development of suitable
fluorescent materials and ballasting
filaments dampened the need for colorimproved
mercury arcs. However, studies
were still going on possible additives for
the mercury lamp in order to increase its
luminous efficacy, regardless of color
properties. In 1941, Schnetzler made a
mercury-thallium lamp having an
efficiency of 70 lm/W, almost twice as
high as its mercury counterpart. The
desired thallium vapor pressure was
reached by operating the arc tube at thrice its normal power
loading, with the consequence we can imagine on the life
expectancy.
In the next decade, studies turned toward metal-halogen
compounds that have higher vapor pressures than metals at a
given temperature. Gilbert Reiling (GE) patented the first metal
halide lamp in 1961, which was intended to replace highpressure
mercury lamps in their sockets. It had a filling
primarily of mercury, thallium and sodium iodide that showed
a sizeable increase of lamp efficacy (up to 100 lm/W) and color
properties, and made it more suitable for commercial, street
and industrial lighting. Eventually GE marketed this lamp in
1964 with additives of sodium and scandium iodides instead.
Most major manufacturers followed shortly thereafter, with
varied compositions in order to meet different lighting needs
and to circumvent competitors’ patents. Today the most
popular additives are sodium-scandium iodides, lithiumsodium-
thallium-indium halides and several mixtures of rareearth
halides.
The sixties and seventies witnessed a furious development of metal-halide lamps in different geometries
from tubular to reflector, and in power range between 175W and 5000W in order to meet the soaring
demands in the many applications it found. One of the last strongholds this kind of source did not invade
was at home. At the end of the 1970’s GE, Sylvania (USA) and Philips designed prototypes of self-ballasted
Figure 14: Reiling’s metal halide lamp. (GE, 1961, [7])
Figure 15: Self-ballasted metal halide
lamp. (ca. 1980, GE MaxiLight 55W)
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metal-halide lamps intended to replace standard filament lamps for domestic applications. This was
ultimately proven unsuccessful due to some lethal drawbacks such as the lack of hot re-strike capabilities
and the prohibitive cost of the lamps.
Two major breakthroughs followed at the beginning of the 1980’s. In 1981, Thorn Lighting (England)
presented the first metal halide lamp with a sintered alumina ceramic discharge tube, which resulted from
ten years of research and development. Unfortunately, this revolutionary source did not reach the market
due to a lamp voltage/current characteristic that
did not match any available ballast. Around the
same year, and with more success, Osram
introduced its compact double-ended HQI-TS
lamps that found an application in shop-window
and commercial lighting.
In 1991, Osram, Philips, Valeo and many other
car equipment manufacturers engaged themselves
in the ‘vedilis’ project, which led to the xenonmetal
halide lamps (D1 and D2) for automotive
headlights. Philips then revived metal halide lamps
with ceramic discharge tubes in 1995, when it
launched its range of CDM lamps. Osram and GE
soon followed. These lamps present today an
alternative to high-pressure sodium sources for
downtown street lighting. The use of this particular design allows for a better lamp-to-lamp color matching,
higher efficacies and better color rendering. Even more so, the bluish light of metal halide performs better
than the orange hue of high-pressure sodium when scotopic vision prevails in low illumination levels at
night.
Low-pressure mercury fluorescent lamps – toward domestic applications
The origin of fluorescent tubes goes back to the invention in 1901 of the low-pressure mercury lamp by
Cooper-Hewitt. For the same reasons as its high-pressure counterpart, its use was restricted to places where
color rendering was not an issue. Right from the start, Cooper-Hewitt worked to improve his lamp by
applying some fluorescent dyes (primarily Rhodamine B) on the bulb surface and later on luminary
reflectors in order to compensate for the lack of red emission. The idea of using fluorescence to convert
invisible light into useful radiation was not new, and already in
1859 E. Becquerel tried to use Geissler tubes filled with fluorescent
materials in order to get a practical light source. His trials were not
successful as the efficacy was too low. Later in 1896, one year after
the discovery of X-rays by W. Röntgen, T. Edison made a X-ray
lamp internally coated with calcium tungstate which radiated a
bluish white light. This source was three times as efficient as
carbon filament lamps, and had X-rays not caused severe injuries,
this lamp would have certainly been the first commercial
fluorescent source.
Back to the twentieth century, it was discovered in 1920 that an
electrical discharge in a proper mixture of argon and mercury at
low pressure could radiate efficiently (60% of power input)
ultraviolet light at 253.7nm and 184.9 nm. Six years later, Meyer,
Spanner and Germer from Osram (Germany) published a landmark
report where they described a low-pressure mercury vapor lamp
provided with externally-heated oxide-coated electrodes, and an internally phosphor-coated bulb to convert
UV radiation into visible light. This document set what would become the first successful fluorescent tubes.
However, its marketing had to wait for the development of efficient electron-emitting electrodes by M.
Figure 17: Cooper-Hewitt tube
connected in series with carbon
filament lamps, which act as a
ballast. (ca. 1910, [8])
Figure 16: Various compact metal halide lamps.
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Pirani and A. Rüttenauer (Osram) in 1932, and the elaboration of the calcium tungstate – zinc silicate
phosphor. Then in September of 1935, the first tubular fluorescent lamp was demonstrated before the
Illuminating Engineering Society in Cincinnati, North America. This was presumably from General
Electric, who had taken over the patent of André Claude on a similar fluorescent tube in 1932. Osram
followed in 1936, and displayed its ‘L’ lamp at the World Exhibition held in Paris. Between 1936 and 1938,
most major lamp manufacturers made fluorescent tubes available both in Europe and in the US for general
lighting applications. These lamps had a tube diameter of 38mm, an efficiency of about 30 lm/W and a
moderate color-rendering index, yet good enough for its use at home.
Figure 18: Philips TL100 and ballasting device from 1939. ([5])
In 1942, A.H. McKeag from GEC (England) made a giant leap with the discovery of calcium and
strontium-activated halophosphates. Lamps using this phosphor
formulation were introduced in 1946 and had twice the efficacy of
former tubes, while the color rendering was much improved.
Philips made the next step with the introduction in 1973 of the
three-band phosphors. This boosted the efficacy up to 90 lm/W
with excellent color rendition (IRC 80-90). This new formulation
also allowed the increase of the lamp wall power loading and led
to the reduction of the tube diameter from 38mm (T12) to
26mm (T8), and then to 16mm (T5) at the beginning of the 1980s.
A decade later, Osram shrunk things further and put a 7mmdiameter
(T2) fluorescent tube on the market (Lumilux-FM).
The reduction of lamp size permitted the design of compact
fluorescent lamps with integrated ballast. The first of this kind was
presented by Philips at a world technical conference held in
Eindhoven in 1976. In 1980, this company introduced successfully
its SL*18, followed by an electronic version in 1982. Competitors
were quick to catch up and by the end of the 1980’s compact
fluorescent lamps were widely available at a reduced cost and package size. The success of these lamps was
partly due to the energy crisis that raised the cost of electric
consumption, thus calling for more efficient and cost-effective light
sources.
At last and not least, from the eighties until the mid-nineties
several lamp makers introduced electrodeless versions of fluorescent
lamps. In these sources the discharge originates from an
electromagnetic field generated by an induction coil antenna. The
suppression of the electrodes increases the lamp lifetime up to sixty to
a hundred thousands of hours.
Fluorescent lamps were the first and only discharge lamps to reach
the level of domestic lighting. Today, they provide a wide range of
color temperature with excellent color rendition and high efficacies.
This explains why they account for seventy percent of all lamps used
in commercial illuminations. Development still continues today, and
priorities are set to size and efficiency. To this respect, the use of
Figure 19: First successful compact
fluorescent lamp. (Philips, 1976)
Figure 20: Electrodeless mercury
fluorescent lamp. (Philips QL55)
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surface-mounted electronic components permitted the making of smaller CFL lamps to fit in low-power
luminaries, therefore claiming more ground to its incandescent counterpart.
Low-pressure sodium lamps – reaching summits in efficacy
Extensive experiments with electrical discharges in alkali vapors could have started only in 1920 when A.H.
Compton formulated a borate glass resistant to sodium. Alkalis, being strong reducers, require special
glasses as normal materials like soda-lime silicates are readily attacked and lead to the formation of a brown
light-absorbing film. Two years later, in 1922, M. Pirani and E. Lax from Osram experimented sodium
discharges for lighting applications. The following year, Compton and C.C. van Voorhis in the USA
attained an efficacy of 340 lm/W with a lamp externally heated by an oven. Naturally, the calculation of the
efficacy did not take into account the energy provided to keep the lamp at its optimum working temperature
of 260°C.
Then, in 1931, both Philips and Osram made the first viable
low-pressure sodium lamps, and the following year a stretch of
road between Beek and Geleen, in the Netherlands was lighted
with Philips lamps. These sources were DC-operated via an
externally heated cathode and had an efficacy of about 50 lm/W. A
Dewar flask surrounded the discharge tube in order to limit the
thermal losses. In 1933 followed the AC-driven positive column
type of lamp, which had a higher efficacy partly due to a more
favorable current density in the discharge.
From 1933 until 1958, lamps were composed of a separate
discharge tube and a double-walled vacuum flask. In 1958, Philips
marketed an integral lamp, which included the discharge tube
within an evacuated bulb thus preventing the former from getting
dirty, as it was the case in the previous design. Subsequent work
was done on increasing the lamp efficacy by improving its thermal
insulation. A first solution consisted of enclosing the discharge
tube in several infrared-absorbing glass sleeves. Then infrared
mirrors made of gold or bismuth
thin films were employed. Philips
made a leap forward in 1965 with
the introduction of the tin oxide
semiconductor mirror, and later the
better tin-doped indium oxide film.
These materials exhibit a strong
infrared reflectivity while being
highly transparent to sodium light.
This led in 1983 to a lamp reaching
the symbolic barrier of 200 lm/W
(SOX-E, by Philips), which is the
highest efficacy reached yet.
The reason why low-pressure sodium is so efficient at producing visible light is that this element, under
the right conditions, radiates an almost-monochromatic yellow light almost coinciding with the peak
sensitivity of the human eye in photopic vision. Also, this yellow light emission corresponds to transitions
from the two lowest (resonant) energy levels of sodium, thus allowing an efficient transfer of energy from
the electric discharge to the excitation of sodium atoms.
In the 1980s, several low-power lamps were experimented for replacing filament lamps in security
lighting. Technically these sources were successful but their prohibitive cost and the need for specific
Figure 21: The first low-pressure
sodium discharge lamp. (Philips,
1932, [9])
Figure 22: Sodium lamp with bamboo-shaped discharge tube and
detachable Dewar outer jacket. (Philips SO/H60W, 1955)
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ballasts prevented their widespread use. Interestingly, Philips designed a LPS lamp that had electrical
characteristics closely matching that of existing fluorescent tubes, so the ballasting equipment was already
standard.
Today, low-pressure sodium lamps remain unchallenged in terms of luminous efficacy. Its bi-chromatic
orange spectrum is the key to its efficiency, but is also
the limitation factor that restrains its use for street and
industrial lighting. In return, its light leads to excellent
seeing contrasts, particularly in foggy weather. Further
developments of these sources concern its highfrequency
operation and improvement of thermal
insulation, which will certainly bring the efficacy up
to 230 lm/W in a more or less distant future. Also
worth of interest is the development of electrodeless
versions that obviate the need for life-limiting parts
such as the electrodes. These sources are however not
likely to reach the market due to difficulties in the
making of a proper discharge vessel.
High-pressure sodium lamps – a compromise between color and efficacy
It was known that increasing the pressure of a sodium discharge would lead to a lower efficacy, but also to a
broader and richer spectrum having better color-rendering properties. The borate glass originally developed
by Compton and the other materials used in low-pressure sodium lamps are not suitable for high-pressure
operation. As the power loading and the temperature of the discharge increase, the reactivity of sodium
toward the wall increases and lamps
degrades themselves within minutes of
operation. Then, the development of the
high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamp had to
wait for the work of Cahoon and
Christensen in 1955-57, and that in 1955
of R.L. Coble on tubes made of sintered
translucent alumina. This material was
found to be resistant and impermeable to alkalis, thus making it suitable for high-pressure sodium lamps.
During the following years, systematic studies were carried out on high-pressure alkali discharges.
Among them, cesium looked promising due to its relatively white spectrum. However, the final choice was
sodium because of its good compromise between
efficacy and color rendering. The development of
suitable sealing and manufacturing techniques
allowed William Louden and Kurt Schmidt (GE)
to make the first practicable high-pressure sodium
lamps in 1964. The next year, GE launched an
industrial full-scale production and a 400W lamp
was made available in 1966 under the ‘Lucalox’
brand name. A 250W version followed three
years later. Their efficacies ranged between 90
and 100 lm/W with a life expectancy of 6000
hours. Refinements in the 1980’s extended the
lifetime to 24,000 hours and the efficacy between
100 and 140 lm/W with a color-rendering index
of 20-25.
The design of this lamp was radically
different than that of metal halide and the mercury
Figure 23: Two special low-pressure sodium
lamps for security lighting. (1980’s)
Figure 25: Early range of sodium lamps from GE.
(1966, [11])
Figure 24: The first high-pressure alkali vapor ceramic
discharge tube. (GE, 1961, [10])
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lamps. It also called for different types of ballasts. While metal halide and mercury sources were and still
are powered in the USA with step-up leakage transformers, high-pressure sodium lamps required a choke
and an external igniter. Then followed several versions of lamps with built-in internal switches that use the
inductance of the choke to kick-start the discharge tube.
Most of these sources have a filling of mercury, xenon and sodium. The role of xenon is to allow the
lamp to start, while mercury sets the electric field in the lamp discharge (positive column) and does not
contribute to the emission spectrum. Without it, the lamp voltage drop would be too low and the current too
high, thus requiring an inefficient and bulky ballast and impairing the luminous efficacy. The environmental
problems caused by mercury forces its suppression, and mercury-free HPS lamps were made available by
mid 1990’s. These lamps have a higher xenon pressure and some starting aid like sintered metal strips on
the discharge tube surface (Philips).
The 1980’s saw also the development of the so-called white HPS lamps by Thorn, Philips and Iwasaki
(Japan), which provide an incandescent-like color at four times the efficacy of tungsten filament lamps.
These sources are still popular today even with the advent of ceramic metal halide lamps. The advantages of
white HPS lies in the large portion of red light in its emission spectrum, leading to a color temperature as
low as 2500K. Metal halide lamps cannot reach such war white tone. Also worth of notice is a lamp
developed in the mid-1990s by Osram (DSX-T), which has its color temperature that can be changed from
2700K (standard tungsten white) to 2900K (tungsten halogen white) by a flick of a switch.
Bright perspectives
The field of lighting had many changes since the revolution in lifestyle and lightstyle Davys’s discoveries
induced! So affected has been and still is the field of lamp manufacturing. The eighteenth century witnessed
the slow emergence of precursors that led to the exponential development of myriads of sources in the next
hundred years. By the dawn of the twentieth century, thousands of lamp makers were struggling on a
boiling market, and to say the truth, it was not far from easy to jump in this business since techniques and
physics involved at this time were not as developed as today. A century later, only three major (general)
manufacturers have survived: Philips, Osram and GE, who count more than 3500 references in their product
catalogs. A couple of hundred of medium-sized, minor or specialized manufacturers surround them. They
are now facing new challenges that will change our lifestyle and lightstyle through the 21st century: the
development and extensive use of white LEDs, and the abandon of harmful materials in all vapor discharge
lamps while still pushing upward their luminous efficacies and color rendering properties.
References
More technical and historical details are available at: http://www.geocities.com/mfgendre
[1] F.J.M. Bothe, AEG-Telefunken Ontladingen/Schakels, 57 p., June 1979.
[2] “Lighting progress in 1959”, Illuminating Engineering, pp.140, March 1960.
[3] R. Küch and T. Retschinsky, “Photometrische und spektralphotometrische messungen am
quecksilberbogen bei hohem dampfdruck”, Annalen der Physik, vol. 20, pp. 563-583, June 1906.
[4] C.C. Paterson, “Luminous discharge tube lighting”, The journal of good lighting, pp.308-318,
December 1932.
[5] P.J. Oranje, Gasontladingslampen, Uitgave Meulenhoff & Co., Amsterdam, 288p., 1942.
[6] J.L. Ouweltjes, W. Elenbaas and K.R. Labberté, “A new high-pressure mercury lamp with fluorescent
bulb”, Philips Technical Review, no. 5, pp. 109-144, November 1951.
[7] G.H. Reiling, “Metallic halide discharge lamps”, US patent #3,234,421, January 23rd, 1961.
[8] G.W. Stoer, History of lights and lighting, Philips Lighting B.V., the Netherlands, 46 p., 1988.
[9] “Fifty years of low-pressure sodium lighting”, Philips Lighting News, no. 8, 1982.
[10] K. Schmidt, “Metal vapor lamps”, US patent #2,971,110, February 7th, 1961.
[11] W.C. Louden and W.C. Matz, “High-intensity sodium lamp design data for various sizes”, Illuminating
Engineering, pp. 560-561, September 1966.

Windrush
Square
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7
Brixton
Railway
Station
Brixton
Village
Brixton Road
Acre Lane
Brixton Hill
Effra Road
Rushcroft Rd
Saltoun Rd
Atlantic Rd
Electric Av
Porden Road
Electric La
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20
6
9
8
3
13
5
4
Coldharbour Lane
10 11
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Brixton
Tube Station
BRIXTON
Start at Tate Library , built in 1892 in Victorian
Classical style. It was funded by Henry Tate of
Tate & Lyle, the sugar merchants.
Tate invented the sugar cube.
Find his bust in front of the Library.
By the library is the Sharpeville Monument .
It was built to commemorate black people killed on
21 March 1960 when police opened fire on a peaceful
protest in the South African township of Sharpeville.
Walk on into Windrush Square , created to celebrate
the 50th anniversary of the arrival of SS Windrush from
the Caribbean in 1948 with 492 West Indians on board.
Many of them settled in Brixton. On the south-east corner
of the square is the Maidenhair Tree , Gingko biloba,
one of the oldest tree species in the world. There is an
old-fashioned Bovril advertisement
painted on the side of a building to the east.
Look out for other signs like this.
There’s one in Electric Lane,
near Atlantic Avenue.
Cross Effra Road and turn right toward the junction and
the Budd Memorial . This was erected in 1825 by
Henry Budd in memory of his father Richard Budd, ‘a
respected parent’, who was born in Brixton in 1748.
The serpent eating its tail is
the symbol for eternal life.
Can you find it?
Walk through the gardens to
St. Matthew’s Church . Built in
1822, it was one of four ‘Waterloo’ churches built in South
London in the early 19th century. The road opposite,
Porden Road, is named after its architect, C.F. Porden.
Turn right down Brixton Hill passing The Fridge on
your left. One of London’s most famous music venues,
it was built in 1914 and used to be the Palladium Cinema.
Can you see the fridge doors that
decorate the front?
On the corner of Acre Lane is Lambeth Town Hall ,
built in 1908 with red brick and stone decoration.
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The four figures around the tower
represent Justice, Science, Art, Literature.
Which one is Justice and
how can you tell?
Cross the road to Coldharbour Lane. The Ritzy Cinema
, opened in 1911 as the ‘Electric Pavilion Cinema’, is
the second oldest cinema in London.
Can you find the angels
holding up the letters E and P
for Electric Pavillion?
In front of the Ritzy is the London Plane
Tree , Acer Platanus x acerifolia,
ideal for London streets as it is not harmed by pollution.
Also here is the Foundation Stone of
the Old Brixton Theatre ,
bombed during World War II. It was
laid by the famous actor Henry Irving.
Can you find the
architect’s name?
You are now walking down Coldharbour Lane , once
a winding country lane connecting Brixton to Camberwell.
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There’s a lot to see and do right
on your doorstep. One of the best
ways to explore is to take a
Lambeth Walk. This walk has been
put together by Lambeth Council
to help you discover more about
Brixton and the surrounding areas
of Herne Hill and Ruskin Park.
Brixton is right at the heart of Lambeth. Here, you’ll find
the market, the town hall, the Ritzy cinema and a huge
number of other things to see and do. As you walk, you’ll
pass through two of Lambeth’s most popular parks and
see some of the wildlife on offer.
The walk starts at the Brixton Tate Library and ends
further along Coldharbour Lane, just past Loughborough
Junction Station. To make the walk circular
you can head back along Coldharbour
Lane on foot (about 10 minutes) or take
the bus. The walk is expected to take
about 2 hours.
Brixton to
Ruskin Park
Walk
You’ll be able to learn about local history and
architecture, and some of the colourful
characters that have lived and died here. There’s
something to interest the whole family, and some very
particular activities and questions to keep the children
entertained. Some of the things you find out about can
be used to complete the quiz elsewhere in the pack.