Fundamental research on mercuryless rare gas fluorescent lamps at pulsed discharge

The characteristics of xenon-neon discharge fluorescent lamps with inner electrodes, and xenon discharge lamps with external electrodes are described in this paper. All these lamps were operated at pulsed discharge. In the case of inner electrode type, when the partial pressure of neon is high, the ignition voltage is low because of the Penning effect. Then, the high mixing ratio of neon is desirable for the lower ignition voltage. However, the luminance of phosphor increases as the mixing ratio of xenon increases. Therefore, in order to obtain high luminance, xenon should be filled at high mixing ratio. If only xenon is filled in the lamp of inner electrode type, the cathode is bombed and damaged by the large mass xenon ions. Consequently, the most suitable mixing ratio of xenon and neon or some buffer gas should be found experimentally for inner electrode type. On the other hand, when the lamp filled only with xenon is operated by external electrodes, as the pressure of xenon increases, the afterglow peak of phosphor emission increases. These increases seem to be caused by the UV light of xenon excimers. However, the starting voltage becomes high at high xenon pressure. So, the optimization of some conditions such as electrodes, pulse frequency, etc. is required for external electrode type.