Sealed efficient excilamps excited by a capacitive discharge

The development of sealed XeCl (lambda similar to 308 nm), KrCl (lambda similar to 222 nm), and XeI (lambda similar to 253 nm) excilamps excited by a capacitive rf discharge is reported. It is shown that highly efficient emission of exciplex molecules is achieved under capacitive discharge excitation and the emitter has a simple design. An average emission power of 3 W was obtained with a similar to 12% efficiency and the lifetime of the sealed excilamps was longer than 1000 h. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S1063-7850(99)00611-4].