THE APPLICATION OF ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY TO THE STUDY OD WALL REACTIONS IN HALOGEN LAMPS AND METAL HALIDE DISCHARGE LAMPS

摘要

The assessment of the changing envelope topography in an operating lamp is a useful indicator of the processes involved in wall/atmosphere interactions. The use of AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy) has allowed us to make a detailed study of this interface. Use of the Burleigh ARIS 3300 Personal AFM yields resolution of at least 1 nm in the x and y directions and 0.1 nm in the z direction. With resolution at this level extremely subtle changes in wall topography can be detected. Wall degradation can be monitored after very short operation times (minutes) using AFM, thus offering significant reductions in the time necessary to investigate wall reactions compared to other possible diagnostic methods such as light transmission which require lamp operation of thousands of hours.