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A flicker light bulb, flicker flame light bulb or flicker glow lamp is a gas-discharge lamp which produces light by ionizing a gas, usually neon mixed with helium and a small amount of nitrogen gas, by an electric current passing through two flame shaped electrode screens coated with partially decomposed barium azide. The ionized gas moves ...
A General Electric NE-34 glow lamp, manufactured circa 1930. Neon was discovered in 1898 by William Ramsay and Morris Travers.The characteristic, brilliant red color that is emitted by gaseous neon when excited electrically was noted immediately; Travers later wrote, "the blaze of crimson light from the tube told its own story and was a sight to dwell upon and never forget."
Neon lights were named for neon, a noble gas which gives off a popular orange light, but other gases and chemicals called phosphors are used to produce other colors, such as hydrogen (purple-red), helium (yellow or pink), carbon dioxide (white), and mercury (blue). Neon tubes can be fabricated in curving artistic shapes, to form letters or ...
Helium provides about as short deionization time as hydrogen, but can withstand lower voltage, so it is used much less often. [5] Neon has low ignition voltage and is frequently used in low-voltage tubes. Discharge in neon emits relatively bright red light; neon-filled switching tubes therefore also act as indicators, shining red when switched on.
A very common Penning mixture of about 98–99.5% of neon with 0.5–2% argon is used in some neon lamps, especially those rated for 120 volts. The mixture is easier to ionize than either neon or argon alone, and lowers the breakdown voltage at which the tube becomes conductive and starts producing light.
The inertness of noble gases makes them useful whenever chemical reactions are unwanted. For example, argon is used as a shielding gas in welding and as a filler gas in incandescent light bulbs. Helium is used to provide buoyancy in blimps and balloons. Helium and neon are also used as refrigerants due to their low boiling points.
The first gas laser, the Helium–neon laser (HeNe), was co-invented by Iranian engineer and scientist Ali Javan and American physicist William R. Bennett, Jr., in 1960. It produced a coherent light beam in the infrared region of the spectrum at 1.15 micrometres. [1] A helium-neon laser is a well-known type of gas laser
Hydrogen and helium are the most commonly used lift gases. Although helium is twice as heavy as (diatomic) hydrogen, they are both significantly lighter than air. The lifting power in air of hydrogen and helium can be calculated using the theory of buoyancy as follows: Thus helium is almost twice as dense as hydrogen.