Aachen PK 2003 – scientific programme

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PV: Plenarvorträge

PV VII

PV VII: Plenary Talk

Wednesday, March 19, 2003, 09:45–10:30, FO1

Environmentally friendly light sources — •Matthias Born — Philips Research Laboratories,Weisshausstr.2,D-52066Aachen

One of the key subjects of modern lighting technologies is the further improvment of efficiencies of electrical light sources. In addition, the usage of environmentally friendly substances is required by legislation. One of the latest examples is the banning of mercury from so called Xenon lamps which are applied in automotive headlights. For this type of discharge lamp the European government has initiated a law whichs forbids the usage of mercury already in the year 2003 (end-of-life vehicle directive). In the USA similar trends are going on. The removal of mercury from discharge lamps is also expected for the general lighting market, soon.

Today, mercury is still part of discharge lamps fillings: In low pressure lamps mercury is used as an high efficiently UV-radiator. In high pressure discharge lamps where metale halide additives are radiating, mercury is used as a so called buffer gas. It adjusts the electrical field strength (lamp voltage) by elastical electron scattering. The radiation properties are mainly due to atomic and molecular transitions of the additives, i.e. NaI, TlI or rare-earth halides (LnI3). In the talk, an overview of recent research and development activities about high efficiently and environmentally friendly light sources will be given.