Amalgam lamps use a mercury amalgam mix to control mercury vapor pressure.
Low pressure mercury vapour lamp circuit diagram.
When a mercury vapor lamp is first turned on it will produce a dark blue glow because only a small amount of the mercury is ionized and the gas pressure in the arc tube is very low so much of the light is produced in the ultraviolet mercury bands.
As the main arc strikes and the gas heats up and increases in pressure the light shifts into the visible range and the high gas pressure causes.
Rather than a cold spot the lamp s amalgam spot on pellet regulates mercury vapor pressure during operation and yields up to three times the uvc output of a standard low pressure mercury lamp of the same length.
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.
Again transition of the electrons requires least amount of input energy from a colliding electron.
Two varieties of such lamps exist.
A fluorescent lamp is a low weight mercury vapour lamp that uses fluorescence to deliver visible light.
As pressure increases the chance of multiple collisions gets increased.
In case of fluorescent lamp the mercury vapour pressure is maintained at lower level such that 60 of the total input energy gets converted into 253 7 nm single line.
The aperture phosphor coated lamps that jelight company produces employ the same basic design as the double bore low pressure mercury vapor lamps with the exception of a special phosphor coating.