ABSTRACT
SUMMARY Nearly all discharge lamps in Lighting applications are based on atomic species. The use of mercury, sodium or rare gases is state of the art. In existing high intensity discharge (HID) lamps containing metal halides molecular radiation is contributing to a lesser extent to the spectrum. In some transient rare gas discharges (e.g. dielectric barrier discharges) the radiation originates from excimer molecules formed from the atomic fill gases within the plasma.
