RF plasma lamp

This is an ordinary bulb. The plasma is a low current radio frequency (4MHz) glow discharge. The yellow colour is sodium ions leaching out of the glass and being excited by the discharge. It looks cool too!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• rf
• plasma
• lamp
• globe
• discharge
• glow
• high
• frequency
• electric
• radio

[frizspin175]

conductive glass!

[kimladha]

Glass, like any dielectric, breaks down and allows electron transfer if the voltage is high enough. The interisting this is that just before breakdown the plasma forms two dielectic barrier discharges on either side of the glass and current flows using the capacitance between the plasmas instead!

[jenson1066]

What would happen if a HPS bulb of halide bulb was used?

[kimladha]

The colour of the plasma would be different. This only works if the lamp pressure is low. Once the bulb breaks the plasma looks like a normal glow discharge like at the end of the video. If you put a MH lamp with a broken tube inside (so the halides leaked out), and so long as the outer vacuum was intact, then I recon it would look even better- more colourful definitely!

[00011theman]

A plasma globe wont do that because its too high frequency?

[achanuk]

no...

[RotogenRay]

Woah! Was that a tesla coil at 4 megahertz?

That was effing awesome, especially the glow discharge in the bulb

[johndaviscuh]

cool it looks alive