A Lighting Mechanism for Flat Electron Emission Lamp

A novel lighting device, flat electron emission lamp (FEEL), has been developed for generating planar light. The mechanism of FEEL is different from the mainstream techniques for lighting and display. The basic idea for FEEL is, for the first time, to integrate the discharge mechanisms of fluorescent lamp at cathode with the cathodoluminescent effect at anode. In that the electrons are induced by gas discharge, accelerated toward anode under electrical field, and finally impacting the phosphor-coated anode to emit visible light. The light spectrum radiated from FEEL is thus, dominated by the detailed composition of the phosphor coated on the anode. Unlike most of the fluorescent lamps, ultraviolet light is unnecessary in this case, and therefore there is no need to have mercury inside the device. By taking into account the human factors, such as safety and health, the uniform lighting obtained in FEEL further offers a prominent characteristic which prevents the eyes from the uncomfortable glare and drastically improves the persistence of vision. In this article we also demonstrate various prototype potential applications featured by FEEL, namely the double-side lighting, transparency, colored grayscale image and heat insulation, etc. It is indicative that FEEL not only could have broad potential markets for normal lighting, but also might play a prominent role in power-saving building material and gray-scale ambiance lighting. More importantly, the unique mechanism prevailing in FEEL shows the high flexibility of expanding its applicability albeit it is still in the early stage of laboratory studies. We believed that it may become one of the competing candidates for the next generation green lighting in the near future.