Operation
The electrodes of the lamp are usually connected to a capacitor, which is charged to a relatively high voltage (generally between 250 and 5000 volts), using a step up transformer and a rectifier. The gas, however, exhibits extremely high resistance, and the lamp will not conduct electricity until the gas is ionized. Once ionized, or "triggered", a spark will form between the electrodes, allowing the capacitor to discharge. The sudden surge of electric current quickly heats the gas to a plasma state, where electrical resistance becomes very low. There are several methods of triggering.
Read more about this topic: Flashtube
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“It is critical vision alone which can mitigate the unimpeded operation of the automatic.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“You may read any quantity of books, and you may almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don’t have, at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”
—Francis Bacon (1560–1626)