Light Emitting Plasma

[tanit]

New type of lighting is being test for aquarium look very interresting

From Advance Aquarist.com

Plasma Arc lighting from Aqua Illumination

Plasma arc lighting is such a new technology that we are surprised to already see a prototype plasma arc light running on a reef tank. Although the plasma arc light from Luxim only hit the mainstream press in the spring of 08, the pioneering techies over at Aqua Illumination couldn't wait to get their hands on the first round of developing kits for the plasma arc light so they could start pushing the envelope. Plasma Arc Lighting was developed by Luxim Corportation, the same manufacturer of many of the better high-ouput LEDs. The Plasma Arc lamps are fully dimmable and the 250 watt pill can put out up to 140 lumens per watt which is twice the efficiency of compact fluorescent lamps and still a good deal better than the 90-110 lumens per watt of high performance LEDs.

The plasma arc light is similar to a metal halide lamp in that the bulb is made up of a small, gas and metal halide filled inner envelope but the similarities end there. The plasma arc lamp is nothing but this little glass envelope and it has no contacts or additional components like a metal halide lamp. Instead, the plasma arc light sits in a small driver which acts produces electromagnetic and radio frequency (RF) waves. The RF waves are directed towards the center of the plasma arc lamp where they vaporize the argon and metal halides and voila, light spills forth. One of the few drawbacks of plasma arc light is that the efficiency of light output and the color spectrum emitted is variable across it's power range and they seem to shift color as they are dimmed. We don't expect to see any production models announced any time soon but as it stands, we are just excited to know that the Plasma Arc light is already logging some time growing aquarium corals.

And this is more info in glassbox design

http://glassbox-design.com/2009/aqua-illumination-luxim-plasma-light-emitter-impresses-with-spread/

[SamuelTan]

Wow...