Neon lighting:

Introduction:

Neon lighting comprises of brightly illuminating glass tubes or bulbs that have been electrified and are filled with rarefied neon or other gases. A kind of cold cathode gas discharge light is a neon light. A sealed glass tube with a metal electrode at each end that is filled with one of many gases under low pressure is known as a neon tube. The electrodes are subjected to a high potential of several thousand volts, which ionises the gas inside the tube and causes it to generate colourful light. The gas inside the tube determines the hue of the light.Neon tubes can be crafted into curved creative shapes that can be used to create letters or images. They are mostly used to create neon signs, which were popular from the 1920s to the 1960s and again in the 1980s. Neon signs are spectacular, multicoloured glowing signage for advertising.

 

Neon lighting

The phrase can also be used to describe the tiny neon glow lamp, which was created in 1917—roughly seven years after neon tube lighting.

 

Unlike neon tube lights, which are normally metres long, neon lamps can be as small as one centimetre and glow considerably more subtly. They continue to be used as tiny indication lights. Neon glow lamps were widely utilised for small ornamental lamps, electronic numerical displays, and circuitry signal processing during the 1970s.

 

Although these lamps are now considered antiques, plasma displays and modern televisions were made using neon glow lamp technology.

 

The British physicists Morris W. Travers and William Ramsay discovered neon in 1898. Through the use of a "electrical gas-discharge" tube, a precursor to the tubes used for neon signs today, they first extracted pure neon from the environment and studied its properties. At the Paris Motor Show, held from December 3–18, 1910, French engineer and inventor Georges Claude unveiled neon tube lighting in virtually its contemporary form. In the years between 1920 and 1940, the new technology—often referred to as "the Edison of France"—became extremely popular for signage and exhibitions. Claude enjoyed a near-monopoly on this market.

 

By 1940, neon lights had become a significant part of American culture. Nearly every American city's downtown was lit up with neon signs, and Times Square in New York City was renowned for its extravagant use of neon. Nationwide, there were 2,000 businesses that created and manufactured neon signs. Following the Second World War (1939–45), neon signage for advertising became less common, intricate, and large-scale in the United States, while development was brisk in Japan, Iran, and some other nations. In recent years, neon tube lighting has been reintroduced into the works of architects, painters, and sign designers.

 

Fluorescent lighting, which emerged roughly 25 years after neon tube lighting, is closely related to neon lighting. In fluorescent lighting, the light emitted by rarefied gases inside a tube is only utilised to stimulate fluorescent materials that coat the tube. When these materials shine with their own colours, it creates the tube's apparent glow, which is typically white. Although fluorescent coatings and glasses offer an alternative for neon tube lighting, they are typically chosen to achieve vivid colours.

 

Science and history:

A small amount of the atmosphere on Earth is made up of the inert gas neon, a chemical member of the noble gas family. William Ramsay and Morris W. Travers, two British physicists, made the discovery in 1898. Ramsay and Travers employed a "electrical gas-discharge" tube, which is akin to the tubes used today for neon signs, to study the properties of pure neon after they were successful in extracting it from the environment. The blaze of crimson light emanating from the tube, Travers later penned, "told its own story and was a sight to dwell upon and never forget."Since the colours of light (the "spectral lines") emitted by a gas discharge tube are essentially fingerprints that identify the gases inside, the process of studying the colours of the light emitted from gas-discharge (or "Geissler") tubes was widely known at the time.

 

Neon tubes were utilised as scientific instruments and novelty items as soon as neon was discovered. Although Moore tubes, which utilised more widely available nitrogen or carbon dioxide as the working gas and had some commercial success in the US in the early 1900s, employed neon as the working gas, the lack of pure neon gas prevented its fast deployment for electrical gas-discharge lighting.After 1902, the French company Air Liquide founded by Georges Claude started manufacturing large amounts of neon as a byproduct of the air liquefaction industry. At the Paris Motor Show from December 3 to December 18, 1910, Claude displayed two substantial, bright red neon tubes measuring 12 metres (39 feet) in length.

 

Essentially, these neon bulbs were in their modern configuration. The glass tubes used in neon lighting have exterior diameters that range from 9 to 25 mm, and they can be as long as 30 metres when powered by normal electrical equipment (98 ft). The partial vacuum in the tubing is caused by the gas's pressure, which varies from 3 to 20 Torr (0.4 to kPa) within. Additionally, Claude had found solutions to two technical issues that significantly reduced the operating lifespan of neon and other gas discharge tubes, effectively creating the neon lighting industry.

 

The design of the electrodes for gas-discharge lighting was the subject of Claude's 1915 US patent, which served as the foundation for the neon sign monopoly that his business, Claude Neon Lights, had in the US during the first few years of the 1930s.

 

In his inventions, Claude proposed using gases like argon and mercury vapour to achieve hues other than those of neon. For instance, blue is produced when metallic mercury and neon gas are combined. Then, uranium (yellow) glass can be used to create green. Argon and helium can also be used to produce white and gold.

 

The range of colours and effects for tubes using argon gas or argon-neon mixtures was further expanded in the 1920s with the development of fluorescent glasses and coatings. Typically, fluorescent coatings are used with an argon/mercury vapour mixture, which emits ultraviolet light that activates the fluorescent coatings. By the 1930s, neon tube light colour combinations were successful in Europe but not in the US. They were now suitable for some general interior lighting applications. Since the 1950s, approximately 100 new hues for neon tube lighting have been produced thanks to the development of phosphors for colour televisions.

 

Neon lighting

The tiny neon lamp was created by Daniel McFarlan Moore, who was then employed by General Electric, in the early 1920s. The design of the glow lamp differs significantly from the much larger neon tubes used for signage; in 1919, a separate US patent was granted for the lamp. "These compact, low power devices exploit a physical mechanism termed "coronal discharge,"" according to a Smithsonian Institution website. Moore put neon or argon gas into a bulb with two electrodes placed closely together. Depending on the gas, the electrodes would emit a brilliant red or blue glow, and the lamps would survive for years.

 

Fanciful decorative lamps have been a popular application since the electrodes might assume practically any shape imaginable. Until the advent of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) starting in the 1970s, glow lamps were used in practical ways as electrical components, indicators in instrument panels, and in many home appliances.

 

Although certain neon lamps are now considered antiques and their application in electronics has significantly decreased, the technology has continued to advance in the realms of art and entertainment. Long tubes used for neon lighting have been transformed into thin flat panels for plasma displays and plasma televisions.