Dimming of conventional metal halide lamps readily causes changes in the lamp's color, decreases its efficacy, and reduces its lifetime. Employing inductively coupled electrodeless discharge in mercury-free metal halide lamps led to less color change and greater efficacy in dimming. The correlated color temperature of optimally designed lamps, containing a dose of ScI
3-NaI-SnI
2 and Xenon gas in the arc tube, was changed by only 300K at the 30% dimming ratio. The general color rendering index (
Ra) did not shift greatly and the lamp's efficacy could be kept at 89% of the rated wattage efficacy at 75% of the rated wattage (1/4 greater than the conventional result). It was possible to correct the color characteristics during dimming by adding new metal halides to the ScI
3-NaI-SnI
2 lamp, keeping improved dimming characteristics. It was possible to correct color deviation and
Ra by adding suitable amounts of DyI
3 or InI, though the lamp efficacy decreased by about 10% at the rated wattage.
This has proved that the dimming performance of metal halide lamps can be improved by employing inductively coupled electrodeless discharge in optimally designed mercury-free metal halide lamps.
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