Neon lighting consists of brightly glowing,
electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain rarefied neon or other gases.
Neon lights are a type of cold cathode gas-discharge light. A neon tube light
is a sealed glass tube with a metal electrode at each end, filled with one of a
number of gases at low pressure. A high potential of several thousand volts
applied to the electrodes ionizes the gas in the tube, causing it to emit
colored light. The color of the light depends on the gas in the tube. Neon
lights were named for neon, a noble gas which gives off a popular orange light,
but other gases and chemicals are used to produce other colors, such as hydrogen
(red), helium (yellow), carbon dioxide (white), and mercury (blue). Neon tubes
can be fabricated in curving artistic shapes, to form letters or pictures. They
are mainly used to make dramatic, multicolored glowing signage for advertising,
called neon signs, which were popular from the 1920s to the 1950s.
The term can also refer to the miniature neon glow
lamp, developed in 1917, about seven years after neon tube lighting. While neon
tube lights are typically meters long, the neon lamps can be less than one
centimeter in length and glow much more dimly than the tube lights. They are
still in use as small indicator lights. Through the 1970s, neon glow lamps were
widely used for numerical displays in electronics, for small decorative lamps,
and as signal processing devices in circuity. While these lamps are now
antiques, the technology of the neon glow lamp developed into contemporary
plasma displays and televisions.
Georges Claude, a French engineer and inventor,
presented neon tube lighting in essentially its modern form at the Paris Motor
Show from December 3–18, 1910. Claude, sometimes called "the Edison of
France", had a near monopoly on the new technology, which became very
popular for signage and displays in the period 1920-1940. Neon lighting was an
important cultural phenomenon in the United States in that era; by 1940, the
downtowns of nearly every city in the US were bright with neon signage, and
Times Square in New York City was known worldwide for its neon extravagances.
There were 2000 shops nationwide designing and fabricating neon signs. The
popularity, intricacy, and scale of neon signage for advertising declined in
the U.S. following the Second World War (1939–1945), but development continued
vigorously in Japan, Iran, and some other countries. In recent decades’
architects and artists, in addition to sign designers, have again adopted neon
tube lighting as a component in their works.
Neon lighting is closely related to fluorescent
lighting, which developed about 25 years after neon tube lighting. In
fluorescent lights, the light emitted by rarefied gases within a tube is used
exclusively to excite fluorescent materials that coat the tube, which then
shine with their own colors that become the tube's visible, usually white,
glow. Fluorescent coatings and glasses are also an option for neon tube
lighting, but are usually selected to obtain bright colors.
No comments:
Post a Comment