Ankita
Member • Apr 22, 2014
Japanese Researchers Develop New Vacuum UV Lamp For Future Solid State Lighting
A research team from a group of universities in Japan has come up with a great solution to the problems associated with the currently used commercial vacuum UV lamps. The team's new vacuum ultraviolet (UV) lamp is capable of emitting high-energy UV light at the shortest wavelengths (140 to 220 nanometers) ever recorded for such a device. The speciality of the lamp is that its light can propagate in vacuum, but gets quickly absorbed by oxygen in the air. The team's research work can find applications in lot of industries that work in decontamination processes, because the when the vacuum ultraviolet light strikes oxygen-containing molecules on a surface, it generates highly reactive oxygen radicals. These radicals can completely destroy any microbes contaminating that surface. Some industries where this solution can readily be used are - sterilization of medical devices and cleaning of semiconductor substrates.
The commercial vacuum UV lamps in use today are bulky, expensive, use a lot of power, run hot, have short lifetimes and contain toxic gasses. In short, there's no reason why we should be using them anymore than what we already do.
The participants in this research are scientists from Nagoya Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, the Tokuyama Corporation in Tokyo; Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan; and the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Kitakyushu, Japan. Together, they fabricated the lamp with a solid-state phosphor made from a thin film of KMgF3 - a particularly safer alternative. One of the problems faced by the team was fabrication of phosphor using a toxic and corrosive fluoride containing compound. But the team was successful in developing a pulsed laser deposition technique - a way of layering thin films of chemicals on surfaces through irradiation with a focused laser beam - to do the trick.
The newly designed UV lamp removes almost all disadvantages associated with traditional UV lamps. There are smaller, longer lasting, relatively heat-free and more flexible in design. What are your thoughts on that? Share with us in comments.
Source: Vacuum Ultraviolet Lamp of the Future Created in Japan | American Institute of Physics
The commercial vacuum UV lamps in use today are bulky, expensive, use a lot of power, run hot, have short lifetimes and contain toxic gasses. In short, there's no reason why we should be using them anymore than what we already do.
The participants in this research are scientists from Nagoya Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, the Tokuyama Corporation in Tokyo; Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan; and the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Kitakyushu, Japan. Together, they fabricated the lamp with a solid-state phosphor made from a thin film of KMgF3 - a particularly safer alternative. One of the problems faced by the team was fabrication of phosphor using a toxic and corrosive fluoride containing compound. But the team was successful in developing a pulsed laser deposition technique - a way of layering thin films of chemicals on surfaces through irradiation with a focused laser beam - to do the trick.
The newly designed UV lamp removes almost all disadvantages associated with traditional UV lamps. There are smaller, longer lasting, relatively heat-free and more flexible in design. What are your thoughts on that? Share with us in comments.
Source: Vacuum Ultraviolet Lamp of the Future Created in Japan | American Institute of Physics