FAQS: Color of Gases used in Plasma and Neon

Hello Lightning Tamers!

Podcast episode are long in between, to fill that time between each release, I’ve started to approach a list of question I’ve been asked, or have for myself to help us learn about Plasma/Neon. So one of the basic things we will look at in today’s post are the colors produced by individual gases used in both Neon and Plasma.

There are three ways to augment color in Neon and plasma:

1. The colors produced by the gas and it it’s mixtures
2. The color of the glass used
3. The use of phosphorescent pigments, that illuminate by UV produced by the ionized gases.

Neon and Plasma Tubes and Sculptres are essentially gas filled vessels that are excited into an ionized state through high voltage electricity.

Traditional neon, that is light work typical in neon signs will often use Neon, Argon, and mercury.

Plasma Neon or Plasma Light, which can be tubing or free form blown glass, will often use krypton and xenon as part of it’s mixture to give you the plasma globe visuals, with a comibination of other gases including Neon, Argon, Nitrogen, and Helium.

Noble Gases

These Gases make up less than 1% of the air in our atmosphere with Nitrogen making up 78% and Oxygen 21% .
Refer to my post FAQS: Where do these gases come from? which includes a link on the idea that Xenon gases come from comments, and video on how these gases are separated from the air we breathe.

Helium-Pale Peach

Greek: Helios “The Sun”

Neon-Red/Orange

Greek: Neos : “The New One”

Argon-Purple

Greek: Argos “The Lazy One” or “Inert”

Argon + Mercury– Sky Blue

Krypton– White

Greek: kryptos “the hidden one”
AKA poor man’s Xenon
Typically used to give the filimentary effect typical of plasma globes

Xenon-Whitish Blue

Greek: Xenos “The Strange Ine”

Most rare and expensive of the noble gases at 1 part per 20 million, to put that in perspective it be like finding a normal sized dice that was placed on the football field!

Also commonly used to give flimentary effect typical of plasma globes

Almost forgot the include some videos from my friend Carl Willis. Carl is a Nuclear Engineer, and Health Physicist, who is someone who applies the physics of radiation protection for health and and health care purposes, but also a dabbler and maker of plasma tubes. Be on the look out for Carl Willis as guest on a future podcast!

Carl has a few videos on his youtube channel, they are very informational, and explains the content in his video clearly and in a way to easily digest what he’s talking about. Enjoy!

In this video he talks about using Neon gas in a discharge tube, with other gas mixtures.

This video he talks about Kypton and gas mixtures using a iodine as a dopant, and how it is different than Xenon. I hope to cover more on that later, most addative can be dangerous to your health or damaging to your equipment if not handled with the utmost safety and care.

Feel free to send your questions to this email, as well as share and comment!

Thank you,

Percy Echols II
Sorcerer Apprentice ⚡