In the context of developing a mercury-free lamp for automotive lighting an optimization of lamp design and plasma radiation was performed. In contrast to existing quartz lamps, a new lamp design was chosen consisting of a sapphire capillary combined with ceramic parts and pure tungsten electrodes. The lamps consist of metal halides and between 1 and 20 bar of xenon. They were operated with an electronic ballast at input powers between 20 and 40 W. Besides an optimization of the tube materials, thermography and plasma diagnostics were performed to understand the processes inside the lamp and to find optimal operation conditions. In addition to experimental diagnostics, a simulation of self-reversed sodium spectral lines was performed to verify plasma parameters, particularly the xenon pressure which could not be determined from the experiment. Additionally, tendencies of the influence of single components could be estimated by modelling.
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