I followed the link to Chris's theory of operation paragraph, and I believe he is misinformed about where the glow comes from. Sputtering is not necessary for a nixie tube to function; the atoms which become excited and then emit photons as they return to their normal energy state are the gas atoms. In the case of nixie tubes, that is primarily neon, a little bit of argon, and in most tubes, some mercury. Sputtering of the metal is merely an unintended consequence of the electric field and current flow causing some of those gas atoms and ions to collide with the cathodes at high kinetic energy levels. In normal operation of a non-mercury tube, those sputtered atoms do not significantly contribute to the glow discharge. In a tube with mercury, the theory is that the mercury (liquid phase) coats the surface of the cathodes, so when sputtering occurs, it will be mercury atoms that are knocked free. Since mercury (gas phase) is present in the tube, there will then be a state of dynamic equilibrium reached wherein as many mercury atoms rejoin the cathode surface from the gas fill as are being stripped; thus the net result is ideally no cathode erosion and no silvering of the glass.
On Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 11:37:15 PM UTC-7, Tom Van Baak wrote: > > I ran across this IN-18 page by Chris Gerekos: > > http://www.hazardousphysics.com/main/in18clock/IN-18_Nixie_Tube_Clock_1.html > > If you think adding a blue LED glow to a nixie tube is cool, apparently > this is how real men do it: > http://www.hazardousphysics.com/misc/Nixie_tube_at_300000V.html > > /tvb > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/a769f5c4-98e0-4ae8-8bfa-dd31132de115%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
