Dr.

Punit Kumar
Department of Physics
University of Lucknow
Lucknow
 Sodium-vapor lamp
• A sodium-vapor lamp is a gas-discharge lamp that uses sodium in
an excited state to produce light at a characteristic wavelength near
589 nm.

• Two varieties of such lamps exist : low pressure and high pressure.

• Low-pressure sodium lamps are highly efficient electrical light sources,

but their yellow light restricts applications to outdoor lighting, such as
street lamps, where they are widely used.

• Low-pressure sodium lamps only give monochromatic yellow light and

so inhibit color vision at night.

• These operated at pressures of less than 1 Pa and produced a near

monochromatic light spectrum around the sodium emission lines at 589.0 and
589.56 nanometres wavelength.
• High-pressure sodium lamps emit a broader spectrum of light than
the low-pressure lamps, but they still have poorer color rendering
than other types of lamps.

• Light produced have more energy emitted at wavelengths above

and below the 589 nm region.

• A 400 watt lamp would produce around 100 lumens per watt.
Low-pressure sodium
• Low-pressure sodium (LPS) lamps have a borosilicate glass gas discharge tube
(arc tube) containing solid sodium, a small amount of neon, and argon gas in a
Penning mixture to start the gas discharge.

• The discharge tube may be linear (SLI lamp) or U-shaped.

• When the lamp is first started, it emits a dim red/pink light to warm the sodium
metal; within a few minutes as the sodium metal vaporizes, the emission becomes
the common bright yellow.

• These lamps produce a virtually monochromatic light averaging a 589.3 nm

wavelength (actually two dominant spectral lines very close together at 589.0 and
589.6 nm).

• LPS lamps have an outer glass vacuum envelope around the inner discharge tube
for thermal insulation, which improves their efficiency.
• They are efficient electrical light
sources when measured in photopic
lighting conditions, producing above
100 and up to 206 lm/W.

• They are used mainly for outdoor

lighting (such as street lights and
security lighting) where faithful color
rendition is not important.

• Modern LPS lamps have a service life

of about 18,000 hours and do not
decline in lumen output with age,
though they do increase in energy
consumption by about 10% towards
end of life.
High-pressure sodium
• High-pressure sodium lamps (sometimes called HPS lights) have been widely
used in industrial lighting, especially in large manufacturing facilities, and are
commonly used as plant grow lights. They have also been widely used for
outdoor area lighting, such as on roadways, parking lots, and security areas.

• High-pressure sodium lamps are quite efficient — about 100 lumens per watt.

• Since the high-pressure sodium arc is extremely chemically reactive, the arc tube
is typically made of translucent aluminum oxide.

• Xenon at a low pressure is used as a "starter gas" in the HPS lamp. It has the
lowest thermal conductivity and lowest ionization potential of all the stable
noble gases. The low thermal conductivity minimizes thermal losses in the lamp
while in the operating state, and the low ionization potential causes the
breakdown voltage of the gas to be relatively low in the cold state, which allows
the lamp to be easily started.
• An amalgam of metallic sodium and mercury lies at the coolest part of the lamp and
provides the sodium and mercury vapor that is needed to draw an arc.

• The temperature of the amalgam is determined to a great extent by lamp power. The
higher the lamp power, the higher will be the amalgam temperature. The higher the
temperature of the amalgam, the higher will be the mercury and sodium vapor
pressures in the lamp and the higher will be the terminal voltage. As the temperature
rises, the constant current and increasing voltage consumes increasing energy until the
operating level of power is reached. For a given voltage, there are generally three
modes of operation:
1. The lamp is extinguished and no current flows.
2. The lamp is operating with liquid amalgam in the tube.
3. The lamp is operating with all amalgam evaporated.

• The first and last states are stable, because the lamp resistance is weakly related
to the voltage, but the second state is unstable.

• Any anomalous increase in current will cause an increase in power, causing an

increase in amalgam temperature, which will cause a decrease in resistance, which
will cause a further increase in current. This will create a runaway effect, and the
lamp will jump to the high current state. As the actual lamps are not designed to
handle this much power, this would result in catastrophic failure.
• In practical use, the lamp is powered by
an AC voltage source in series with an
inductive "ballast" in order to supply a
nearly constant current to the lamp,
rather than a constant voltage, thus
assuring stable operation.

• The light from the lamp consists of

atomic emission lines of mercury and
sodium, but is dominated by the sodium
D-line emission.

• This line is extremely pressure

(resonance) broadened and is also self
reversed because of absorption in the
cooler outer layers of the arc, giving the
lamp its improved color rendering
characteristics.

• In addition, the red wing of the D-line

emission is further pressure broadened by
the Van der Waals forces from the
mercury atoms in the arc.
Mercury-vapor lamp
• A mercury-vapor lamp is a gas discharge lamp that uses an electric arc through
vaporized mercury to produce light.

•The arc discharge is generally confined to a small fused quartz arc tube mounted
within a larger borosilicate glass bulb.

• The outer bulb may be clear or coated with a phosphor; in either case, the outer
bulb provides thermal insulation, protection from the ultraviolet radiation the light
produces, and a convenient mounting for the fused quartz arc tube.

• Mercury vapor lamps are more energy efficient than incandescent and most
fluorescent lights, with luminous efficacies of 35 to 65 lumens/watt.

• Their other advantages are a long bulb lifetime in the range of 24,000 hours and a
high intensity, clear white light output.
• Clear mercury lamps produce white light
with a bluish-green tint due to mercury's
combination of spectral lines.

•They operate at an internal pressure of

around one atmosphere and require special
fixtures, as well as an electrical ballast.

•They also require a warm-up period of 4 – 7

minutes to reach full light output.
Principle of operation
• The mercury in the tube is a liquid at normal temperatures. It needs to be
vaporized and ionized before the lamp can produce its full light output.

• To facilitate starting of the lamp, a third electrode is mounted near one of the
main electrodes and connected through a resistor to the other main electrode.

• In addition to the mercury, the tube is filled with argon gas at low pressure.
When power is applied, if there is sufficient voltage to ionize the argon, the
ionized argon gas will strike a small arc between the starting electrode and the
adjacent main electrode.

• As the ionized argon conducts, the heat from its arc vaporizes the liquid mercury;
next, the voltage between the two main electrodes will ionize the mercury gas.

• An arc initiates between the two main electrodes and the lamp will then radiate
mainly in the ultraviolet, violet and blue emission lines.
• Continued vaporization of the liquid mercury increases the arc tube pressure to
between 2 and 18 bar, depending on lamp size. The increase in pressure results in
further brightening of the lamp.

• The entire warm-up process takes roughly 4 to 7 minutes.

• The mercury vapor lamp is a negative resistance device. This means its resistance
decreases as the current through the tube increases. So if the lamp is connected
directly to a constant-voltage source like the power lines, the current through it will
increase until it destroys itself. Therefore, it requires a ballast to limit the current
through it. Mercury vapor lamp ballasts are similar to the ballasts used with
fluorescent lamps.
• To correct the bluish tinge, many mercury
vapor lamps are coated on the inside of the outer
bulb with a phosphor that converts some portion
of the ultraviolet emissions into red light. This
helps to fill in the otherwise very-deficient red
end of the electromagnetic spectrum. These
lamps are generally called "color corrected"
lamps.

•Low-pressure mercury-vapor lamps usually

have a quartz bulb in order to allow the
transmission of short wavelength light. If
synthetic quartz is used, then the transparency of
the quartz is increased further and an emission
line at 185 nm is observed also. Such a lamp can
then be used for ultraviolet germicidal
irradiation. The 185 nm line will create ozone in
an oxygen containing atmosphere, which helps in
the cleaning process, but is also a health hazard.
LASER
• The term "laser" originated as an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated
emission of radiation“.

• The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research
Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur
Leonard Schawlow.

• A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light which is coherent.
Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications
such as laser cutting and lithography.

• Spatial coherence also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances
(collimation), enabling applications such as laser pointers and lidar. Lasers can also
have high temporal coherence, which allows them to emit light with a very narrow
spectrum, i.e., they can emit a single color of light.
• Alternatively, temporal coherence can be used to produce pulses of light with a
broad spectrum but durations as short as a femtosecond ("ultrashort pulses").

• Lasers are used in optical disk drives, laser printers, barcode scanners, DNA
sequencing instruments, fiber-optic, semiconducting chip manufacturing
(photolithography), and free-space optical communication, laser surgery and skin
treatments, cutting and welding materials, military and law enforcement devices for
marking targets and measuring range and speed, and in laser lighting displays for
entertainment. They have been used for car headlamps on luxury cars, by using a
blue laser and a phosphor to produce highly directional white light.
Design
• A laser consists of a gain medium, a mechanism to
energize it, and something to provide optical
feedback.

• The gain medium is a material with properties that

allow it to amplify light by way of stimulated
emission.

• Light of a specific wavelength that passes through

the gain medium is amplified.

• For the gain medium to amplify light, it needs to be

supplied with energy in a process called pumping.

• The energy is typically supplied as an electric

current or as light at a different wavelength. Pump
light may be provided by a flash lamp or by another
laser.
Stimulated emission
• An electron in an atom can absorb energy from light (photons) or heat (phonons)
only if there is a transition between energy levels that matches the energy carried by
the photon or phonon.

• Photons with the correct wavelength can cause an electron to jump from the lower
to the higher energy level. The photon is consumed in this process.

• When an electron is excited to a higher energy level, it will not stay that way
forever. Eventually, the electron decays to a lower energy level which is not
occupied, with transitions to different levels having different time constants. When
such an electron decays without external influence, it emits a photon. This process is
called "spontaneous emission".

• The emitted photon has random phase and direction, but its wavelength matches
the absorption wavelength of the transitiion. This is the mechanism of fluorescence
and thermal emission.

• A photon with the correct wavelength to be absorbed by a transition can also cause
an electron to drop from the higher to the lower level, emitting a new photon. The
emitted photon exactly matches the original photon in wavelength, phase, and
direction. This process is called stimulated emission.
• When the number of particles in one excited state exceeds the number of particles
in some lower-energy state, population inversion is achieved.

• In this state, the rate of stimulated emission is larger than the rate of absorption of
light in the medium, and therefore the light is amplified. A system with this
property is called an optical amplifier.
• Since the early period of laser history, laser research has produced a variety of improved
and specialized laser types, optimized for different performance goals, including :
 new wavelength bands
 maximum average output power
 maximum peak pulse energy
 maximum peak pulse power
 minimum output pulse duration
 minimum linewidth
 maximum power efficiency
 minimum cost
and this research continues to this day.

• In 2015, researchers made a white laser, whose light is modulated by a synthetic nanosheet
made out of zinc, cadmium, sulfur, and selenium that can emit red, green, and blue light in
varying proportions, with each wavelength spanning 191 nm.

• In 2017, researchers at TU Delft demonstrated an AC Josephson junction microwave laser.

Since the laser operates in the superconducting regime, it is more stable than other
semiconductor-based lasers. The device has potential for applications in quantum
computing.
 Uses
• When lasers were invented in 1960, they were called "a solution looking for a problem". Since then,
they have become ubiquitous, finding utility in thousands of highly varied applications in every section of
modern society, including consumer electronics, information technology, science, medicine, industry, law
enforcement, entertainment, and the military. Fiber-optic communication using lasers is a key technology
in modern communications, allowing services such as the Internet.

• The first widely noticeable use of lasers was the supermarket barcode scanner, introduced in 1974. The
laserdisc player, introduced in 1978, was the first successful consumer product to include a laser but the
compact disc player was the first laser-equipped device to become common, beginning in 1982 followed
shortly by laser printers.

Communications: besides fiber-optic communication, lasers are used for free-space optical
communication, including laser communication in space.

Medicine: Lasers have many uses in medicine, including laser surgery (particularly eye surgery), laser
healing, kidney stone treatment, ophthalmoscopy, and cosmetic skin treatments such as acne treatment,
cellulite and striae reduction, and hair removal. Lasers are used to treat cancer by shrinking or destroying
tumors or precancerous growths. They are most commonly used to treat superficial cancers that are on the
surface of the body or the lining of internal organs. They are used to treat basal cell skin cancer and the
very early stages of others like cervical, penile, vaginal, vulvar, and non-small cell lung cancer. Laser
therapy is often combined with other treatments, such as surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy.
Laser-induced interstitial thermotherapy (LITT), or interstitial laser photocoagulation, uses lasers to treat
some cancers using hyperthermia, which uses heat to shrink tumors by damaging or killing cancer cells.
Lasers are more precise than traditional surgery methods and cause less damage, pain, bleeding, swelling,
and scarring. A disadvantage is that surgeons must have specialized training. It may be more expensive
than other treatments.
Industry: cutting including converting thin materials, welding, material heat treatment,
marking parts (engraving and bonding), additive manufacturing or 3D printing processes such
as selective laser sintering and selective laser melting, non-contact measurement of parts and
3D scanning, and Laser cleaning.

Military: marking targets, guiding munitions, missile defense, electro-optical

countermeasures (EOCM), lidar, blinding troops. A laser weapon is a laser that is used as a
directed-energy weapon.

Law enforcement: LIDAR traffic enforcement. Lasers are used for latent fingerprint
detection in the forensic identification field.

Research: spectroscopy, laser ablation, laser annealing, laser scattering, laser interferometry,
lidar, laser capture microdissection, fluorescence microscopy, metrology, laser cooling.

Commercial products: laser printers, barcode scanners, thermometers, laser pointers,

holograms, bubblegrams.

Entertainment: optical discs, laser lighting displays, laser turntables