Editing Fluorescent lamp (section)

===Neon lamps===
{{main|Neon lamp|Neon lighting}}

The next step in gas-based lighting took advantage of the luminescent qualities of [[neon]], an inert gas that had been discovered in 1898 by isolation from the atmosphere. Neon glowed a brilliant red when used in Geissler tubes.<ref>{{cite book |title=Discovery of the Elements: Third Edition (reprint) |last=Weeks |first=Mary Elvira |author-link=Mary Elvira Weeks |year=2003 |publisher=[[Kessinger Publishing]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SJIk9BPdNWcC&pg=PA287 |page=287 |isbn=978-0-7661-3872-8 }}{{Dead link|date=April 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> By 1910, [[Georges Claude]], a Frenchman who had developed a technology and a successful business for air liquefaction, was obtaining enough neon as a byproduct to support a neon lighting industry.<ref name=Claude1913>{{cite journal |last=Claude |first=Georges |title=The Development of Neon Tubes |journal=The Engineering Magazine |date=November 1913 |pages=271–274 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=erpMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA271 |access-date=2016-10-01  |archive-date=2023-04-20  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230420064854/https://books.google.com/books?id=erpMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA271 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=vanDulken>{{cite book |title=Inventing the 20th century: 100 inventions that shaped the world : from the airplane to the zipper |last1=van Dulken |first1=Stephen |page=42 |publisher=New York University Press |date=2002 |isbn=978-0-8147-8812-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aVHRRoQvW60C&pg=PA42}}</ref> While neon lighting was used around 1930 in France for general illumination, it was no more energy-efficient than conventional incandescent lighting. Neon tube lighting, which also includes the use of argon and mercury vapor as alternative gases, came to be used primarily for eye-catching signs and advertisements. Neon lighting was relevant to the development of fluorescent lighting, however, as Claude's improved electrode (patented in 1915) overcame "sputtering", a major source of electrode degradation. Sputtering occurred when ionized particles struck an electrode and tore off bits of metal. Although Claude's invention required [[electrodes]] with a lot of surface area, it showed that a major impediment to gas-based lighting could be overcome.

The development of the neon light also was significant for the last key element of the fluorescent lamp, its fluorescent coating.{{sfn|Bright|1949|pp=369–374}} In 1926 Jacques Risler received a French patent for the application of fluorescent coatings to neon light tubes.{{sfn|Bright|1949|p=385}} The main use of these lamps, which can be considered the first commercially successful fluorescents, was for advertising, not general illumination. This, however, was not the first use of fluorescent coatings; Becquerel had earlier used the idea and Edison used calcium tungstate for his unsuccessful lamp.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XcRPQcc0vU0C&q=Becquerel+%22Fluorescent+Lamp%22+Coating&pg=PA283 |title=Building Systems for Interior Designers – Corky Binggeli – Google Books |access-date=2016-06-05 |isbn=9780470228470 |last1=Binggeli |first1=Corky |year=2010 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |archive-date=2023-04-20  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230420064855/https://books.google.com/books?id=XcRPQcc0vU0C&q=Becquerel+%22Fluorescent+Lamp%22+Coating&pg=PA283 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0i-SmPtmJDIC&q=Becquerel+%22Fluorescent+Coating%22&pg=PT163 |title=Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood – Oliver Sacks – Google Books |date=2011-06-16 |access-date=2016-06-05 |isbn=9780330537216 |last1=Sacks |first1=Oliver |publisher=Pan Macmillan |archive-date=2023-04-20  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230420064854/https://books.google.com/books?id=0i-SmPtmJDIC&q=Becquerel+%22Fluorescent+Coating%22&pg=PT163 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ies.org/lighting/history/timeline-of-lighting.cfm |title=Discover Lighting! History > Milestones in Lighting |publisher=Ies.org |access-date=2016-06-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604153528/http://www.ies.org/lighting/history/timeline-of-lighting.cfm |archive-date=2016-06-04 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Other efforts had been mounted, but all were plagued by low efficiency and various technical problems. Of particular importance was the invention in 1927 of a low-voltage “metal vapor lamp” by Friedrich Meyer, Hans-Joachim Spanner, and [[Edmund Germer]], who were employees of a German firm in [[Berlin]]. A German patent was granted but the lamp never went into commercial production.