Terms Used to Describe our UV Lamps

At the LightSources group, we provide a wide range of UV lamps for virtually any application.  While browsing through our extensive website, we encourage you to take a look at our educational area where you will find a glossary of terms commonly used to describe our lamps.  The following is a few definitions you may find helpful.

One word that is used in our specifications is “nanometer”, or the abbreviation, “nm”.   A nanometer is one billionth of a meter and equals 10-9 meter, 10-3 micron or 10 Angstrom.  In the lighting industry, it is used to define the wavelength of light, particularly in the UV and visible ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum.  One wavelength equals the distance between two successive wave crests or troughs.  

Another term used to describe our lamps is “spectral output”, which is the radiant output of a lamp versus wavelength.  While it can be displayed in a variety of ways, most commonly it is in a graph or chart that plots output watts against wavelengths and is influenced by the wavelength resolution used.  Also “energy density” is another important term to understanding the technology.  It is defined as the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume or mass.  For a parallel and perpendicularly incident beam, not scattered or reflected, energy density and fluency become identical.

“Emission spectrum” is the radiation from an atom or atoms in an excited state, usually displayed as radiant power vs. wavelength. It is seen as bright lines or bands when the electromagnetic radiation emitted by a substance is passed into a spectrometer. 

Please see our website for more lighting definitions.  While you are there, take a look at our complete line of UV germicidal lamps (including low pressure, medium pressure and high pressure ultra-violet), specialty fluorescent lamps, tanning lamps, and outdoor sign products.

LightSources and its affiliated companies – LCD Lighting, Voltarc, LightTech, and Cerlux represent the leading high-tech designers and manufacturers in the lamp industry today.  Our products are used worldwide and are found in a multitude of applications and industries such as our UV germicidal lamps that offer patent-protected, OEM-oriented solutions.