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Happy Birthday Neon!
Signs of the Times magazine, August 2005
By Marcus Thielen
This month, in honor and memory of Georges Claude and many other
contributors, I'll focus on the early years of neon.
On Nov. 9, 1911, the U.S. patent office received a document which read:
"Be it known that I, Georges Claude, a citizen of the republic of France,
have invented a certain new and useful improvement in systems of
illuminating by luminescent tubes, of which the following is a specification."
At that time, no one ever thought that such an invention would still be
part of daily life after 90 years — especially because the neon tube was
born as a waste product. It's a long story; let's start from the beginning.
First experiments
In the 17th Century, many scientists experimented with atmospheric air,
including Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli, who, in 1644,
constructed the first recorded mercury column barometer in which he
observed that, when shaken, it would emit a bluish light in the dark.
Furthermore, when such scientists as Henry Cavendish and Benjamin
Franklin investigated "electrified atmospheres," they discovered that the
resulting light's color is also dependent on the chemical composition of gas and
pressure. They didn't have much success "diluting" the gases because the
vacuum technique was very primitive.
Scientists' primary problem (keeping gases under low pressure pure
inside the tube) was solved in 1858 by German glassblower Heinrich Geissler,
who discovered platinum wire inserted through Thuringian glass creates a
perfect vacuum-tight seal.
The Geissler tube in operation
The work of Geissler, an exceptional master glassblower, founded the
spectral analysis of gases, as well as the research on cathodic rays, X
rays and all electrical lamps.
Already familiar with the fluorescence phenomenon (some substances,
excited by invisible radiation, will emit visible light), Geissler fabricated
some of his tubes from fluorescent glass (uranium green) or placed
fluorescing liquid in a second glass jacket around the thin discharge tube.
Geissler also experimented with bending names and letters from glass
tubes, charging them with gas under low pressure and lighting them with
high-voltage electricity.
During these years, electrical lighting also became popular, mostly as
either a carbon-arc or incandescent, carbon-filament lamp.
At the turn of the century, many scientists experimented with electrical
lighting and vacuum electrics. American scientist D. McFarland Moore
discovered that early tubes had a short lifetime because the gas inside
was consumed quickly, thus leaving none to conduct electricity.
But Moore's most famous invention was an automatic refilling valve,
which, when pressure dropped, refilled a tube during operation with gas from a
reservoir. Although bending and processing big (up to 60 ft. in length
and almost 3 in. in diameter) tubes was a challenge, the first luminous
advertising sign using Moore light tubes was installed in a Newark,
NJ-based hardware store in 1904.
Claude's recycling project
In 1895, German engineer Carl von Linde found a way to liquify air and,
in 1902, he discovered how to separate its main compounds (oxygen and
nitrogen) by low-temperature distillation. During the air separation process, such
inert gases as argon, neon, krypton and xenon were leftover as surplus
waste products.
Linde's concurrent, Frenchman Georges Claude, was seeking a commercial
use for such "waste" gases. In addition to his knowledge about the Moore
tube, Claude knew that a chemical reaction between the gas and electrode
material caused a drop in gas pressure.
Thus, by experimenting with different gasses and electrode materials, he
discovered that the gas should be chemically inert, and that the
electrical load for a given electrode surface must remain below a level of
4.5mA/cm2 (29mA per sq. in.).
Claude also found neon to have the best light output vs.
electrical-resistance ratio. Consequently, the neon-lighting tube was
developed and became patented on Jan. 19th, 1915, as U.S. Patent
1,125,476.
Claude's patent for the purification process included the process of
"electrical bombarding," which has been unique to the neon industry. My
research references didnąt include information about where the "heating
and purification of discharge tubes by electrical overload" was used first.
Class at the Egani Institute (New York City)
Claude's monopole
Claude fully exploited his patent commercially. He alone made and sold
the signs in Paris and quickly spread out to other big cities. In 1922,
Claude sold the first two identical signs to the Los Angeles-based Packard
dealership of Earle C. Anthony for $1,250 apiece.
The demand for neon signs increased to such an extent that Claude
couldn't fulfill all the requests he received. Thus, he finally decided to sell
franchise licenses outside of France for $100,000, plus royalties for
each one.
The popularity of neon continued to rise, and "Claude Neon" became so
popular that many thought łNeon˛ was the last name of the inventor.
However, because so many people wanted a piece of this breakthrough technology's
success, fierce commercial strife began to emerge.
In the patent war that took place from the 1920s up to 1932, the courts
declared numerous claims made by the Claude organization invalid, but
the fundamental claim on electrode size was declared valid. The Claude
organization kept all knowledge strictly confidential.
Former Claude employees were the first to start their own neon
businesses and tried to get around Claude's patents. The Cortese brothers (their
family is still active as owners of Berkley Heights, NJ-based EGL) and Ben
Kresge (1915-1999) worked to develop an electrode that could withstand a higher
current on a smaller surface than that claimed by Claude.
Thus, the new or "activated" electrode was developed and adopted the
principle of coating the cathode surface with earth alkali oxides
(discovered by Arthur Wehnelt in 1907), causing a much higher quantity
of electrons to be released into the gas at a reduced voltage drop. The new
electrode was quite different in processing compared to Claude's
uncoated electrodes, and therefore, only a few neon shops could successfully use
them.
The first neon sign in the United States
Because advertising always directly relates to the economy, the 1929
business collapse impacted the neon business. After Claude's patent
expired on Jan. 19, 1932, the neon business began to surge as secrets of the
electrode — and the activated electrode — became widely available. But,
as expected, such conditions led to cutthroat competition at its worst.
Also during this time, techniques from radio-tube and incandescent
manufacturing were adapted to neon. Further, Ben Kresge developed the
machine-made tubulated electrode and introduced it to the market in the
late 1930s. At the same time, filament hot-cathodes for gas-discharge lamps
were introduced, leading to the low-voltage, T-12 lamps widely used for
lighting today.
Because these lamps could be filled with argon/krypton plus mercury
only to operate on low voltage, fluorescent materials were needed to convert the
ultraviolet light into visible, preferably white, light. Unfortunately,
such classical fluorescent materials as willemite, calcium silicate and
calcium tungstate didn't perform well under the environmental conditions of a
heavy-current gas discharge. Only a few colors, including green, blue
and pinkish-white, were available at first.
In addition, glass tubing made from colored glass was used in the neon
field. This glass was obtained from plate-glass manufacturers for
stained-glass windows, which use sodalime glass as a base.
Although lead glass was used for neon tubing due to its ease of
workability, the colored tubes were fabricated from hard sodalime glass up to a few
years ago when a Venetian glass master started to make a soft, lead-free,
colored glass.
Beyond neon's first decade
Technically, little changed in neon's first decade. But after World War
II, government programs were established to help re-educate soldiers. The
Egani Institute (New York City) was one of few schools in the country that
taught neon-trade secrets. The American streamlined design from the 1950s
would be unimaginable without the use of neon.
Also in the early 1950s, neon profited from the "waste" of an invention
in a completely different field — the color TV. The RCA laboratories in
Princeton, NJ, were commissioned to develop the color-TV picture tube,
and they needed very intense fluorescent materials of deep color, especially
red.
Here, for the first time, systematic scientific research was carried
out in the field of fluorescent materials. Plus, the first rare-earth phosphor
— yttrium-vanadate activated with europium — was found. Today, this
phosphor, which is still used to create "coral pink" in neon, is also used in
almost every computer monitor and TV screen.
Marie's Fist Neon by Stephen Antonakos (1965)
The availability of more than 24 colors contributed to the neon boom in
the 1960s, and the technology's rapid expansion continued until the
plastic-box type sign, backlit with fluorescents, was promoted as "the new look."
Neon suffered a recession when price, rather than design, became a
determining factor in signage sales. Although the 1970s were rough
years for neon professionals, some artists discovered that light could be used as
a medium to express the art philosophy of the late '60s and early '70s.
Such artists as Bruce Nauman, Stephen Antonakos, John David Mooney and others
helped neon become an elaborate art form, rather than an expression of
cheap advertising.
In the early 1980s, an energy crisis lead to a push in low-consumption
lightsources, triggering new research on new luminous materials. Highly
efficient fluorescent materials were introduced to the neon world from
the lighting business, and the range of available colors increased to nearly
100.
Rudi Stern helped revive American neon in the '80s and advocated the
technology up to the mid-'90s. In his '96 introduction to The New Let
There Be Neon, he says, "I believe that we need to remind ourselves that neon
is still at the beginning, and its potential has still not really fully
been explored."
Today, we can see the truth in Stern's observation. The demand for the
use of neon and cold cathode in architectural applications is growing, and
the introduction of new techniques like fiberoptics and LED — into the
sign market have strengthened, rather than replaced, neon technology. The
evolution of the "waste" product neon tube remains incomplete 90 years
after the patent was filed.
According to Stern, "The need for this wonderful kinetic light can only
grow." May the next 90 years bring even more breakthrough developments
in neon technology than the first.
Happy birthday, Neon!
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