Microwave-powered ultraviolet lamp
date: label: date made
content: ca. 1996
label: Date made
content: ca 1996
name: label: maker
content: Fusion Lighting, Inc.
notes: label: Description
content: When most people think of electric lighting, they think of ordinary lamps used for lighting rooms or shops. But many types of lamps are made for use in highly specialized applications. One example is a successful product made by Fusion Systems. Founded by four scientists and an engineer, the company markets an ultraviolet (UV) lighting system powered by microwaves. Introduced in 1976, the system found a market in industrial processing as a fast, efficient way to cure inks. A major brewery, for example, purchased the system for applying labels to beer cans and quickly curing their inks while the bottles went down the production line. U.S. patents issued for this lighting system include 3872349, 4042850 and 4208587.
label: Description
content: The lamp seen here, referred to as a "TEM lamp" is a typical production unit. As in a fluorescent lamp, this lamp makes ultraviolet light by energizing mercury vapor. Fluorescents and other conventional lamps pass an electric current between two electrodes to energize the mercury. But Fusion's lamp has no electrodes. Instead the lamp is placed in a specially made fixture similar in principle to a household microwave oven. The microwaves energize the mercury vapor directly. A small dose of metal halides is also energized in the lamp. The choice of metal halides allows specific wavelengths of light to be produced to meet different needs.
label: Description
content: Profits made from the production of this industrial lamp were used by the company to support research and development of a microwave-powered lamp that made visible light. Instead of mercury that lamp used sulfur. However this sulfur lamp did not sell well when introduced in the mid-1990s.
label: Description
content: Lamp characteristics: Clear quartz tube containing a metal-halide pellet and a drop of mercury. No electrodes. The air-cooled tube is radiated by microwaves and produces ultraviolet light.
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: Maryland, Rockville
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
label: See more items in
content: Energy & Power
label: Exhibition
content: Lighting a Revolution
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Turner, B. P.; Ury, M. G.; Leng, Y.; Love, W.G.. Sulfur Lamps -- Progress In Their Development
label: Related Publication
content: Lighting A Revolution exhibition website
label: Related Web Publication
content: http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: from Fusion Lighting Inc.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1996.0359.03
label: catalog number
content: 1996.0359.03
label: accession number
content: 1996.0359
objectType: label: Object Name
content: discharge lamp
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: quartz (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: mercury (drop material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal halide (pellet material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 10 1/4 in x 1/2 in; 26.035 cm x 1.27 cm