UV Sources for Industrial Applications

Source Emission Generated By Main Emission Wavelengths, nm UV Radiant Power, W/cm Main Applications Note 

Low-pressure mercury lamp Low-pressure glow discharge 254 and 185 O.l-l.O Liquid crystal displays, photoresist technology Weaker emission lines at 313 and 578 nm 

Excimer lamp Dielectric barrier (silent) discharge 172,222, 308 1-10 UV curing. Major R D 

When an electron beam enters a material (this includes the accelerator exit window, the air gap, and the material being irradiated), the energy of the accelerated electrons is greatly altered. They lose their energy and slow down almost continuously as a result of a large number of interactions each with only small energy loss. 

Electrons, as any other charged particles, transfer their energy to the material, and through that they pass in two types of interaction  

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ABB Infocom, New Excimer UV Sources for Industrial Applications, Publication CH-E 3.30833.0 E. 

For industrial applications of excimer UV sources, the dielectric barrier and the microwave discharge are simple, reliable, and efficient excitation modes. There are a large number of vacuum UV (VUV), UV, and visible light transitions available. This allows a selective photoexcitation for many systems. Some sources of monochromatic UV light for industrial applications and their characteristics are in Table 2.1. 

Polymers are organic materials and are sensitive to natural or artificial UV sources. This is of primary importance for outdoor exposure of unprotected parts and for some industrial applications such as electrical welding, photocopier light exposure devices. .. 

Excimer lasers are of great importance for UV and vacuum UV (VUV) spectroscopy and photochemistry. They are also found in a wide range of applications. For example, they are used in micromachine medical devices, including refractive surgery, in photo-lithography for the microelectronics industry, for material processing, as optical pump sources for other type of lasers (dyes), and so on. More details about excimer lasers can be found in Rodhes (1979). 

For the development of a continuous photocatalytic reactor, applicable at the industrial level, it is important to consider some parameters such as the catalyst configuration, the specific illuminated surface area, the UV source, the mass-transfer rate and the scale-up possibilities [69]. 

The final two entries in Table III are representative of the lamp sources currently available from the laser industry. Although both are extremely important as tools for investigation of basic photopolymerization processes, their widespread use as sources for UV curing is limited by the small cross section of the beam to specialty applications in the imaging and electronics industries. 

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