🚀 go-pugleaf

harti@ddd.snafu.de (Stefan Hartmann) wrote:
>I just saw on CNN a report about a new light source called:
>Fusion light
>It seems to be powered via a microwave transmitter and
>has about 4 to 5 times the efficiency standard indescant bulbs...
>Does anybdy know, how this is working ?
>Does it use a neon gas inside the bulb ?
>Is it not harmfull due to the huge microwave power  ?

There was a blurb a few issues back in Technology Review, a magazine
put out by MIT to publicize work done there.  It described a very high
intensity, high efficiency light bulb that had been recently
developed.  It consisted of a bulb containing molecules of 2 identical
atoms- I believe sodium, but I could be misremembering.  It used a
microwave generator to transfer energy to the molecules, which would
release it as light. One of the advantages of this method is that the
wavelength of the light emitted was dependent on the distance between
the two atoms in the molecules, which constantly varied, allowing the
bulb to produce an intense white light covering the visible spectrum.
They mentioned that it had been put into use in the National Air &
Space museum in Washington (I think that's where they said it was) and
used only 4 bulbs to light the entire main room, where before they had
been using many (64?) mercury lamps.  They had also coupled the bulbs
with a fiber optic pathway that would gradually release the photons
along its pathway, so as to distribute the light usefully.  I don't
recall what the concerns were about using microwaves.  I do remember
that there was difficulty scaling it down to be practical for smaller
applications:  apparently they needed to develop microwave generators
that worked efficiently at 1/1000th the current level.  Also, to
prevent the bub from overheating, the bulb must constantly rotate,
introducing a possible source of mechanical failure.  MIT has past
issues of Technology Review online, but they don't put the entire
magazine online and I don't think that this blurb is there.

-Kevin