AVS 54th International Symposium | |
Vacuum Technology | Thursday Sessions |
Session VT-ThM |
Session: | Pumping, Pressure Measurement and Calibration |
Presenter: | P.F. Somssich, Osram Sylvania |
Authors: | P.F. Somssich, Osram Sylvania K.J. Zuk, Osram Sylvania |
Correspondent: | Click to Email |
A method to non-destructively measure the gas fill pressure of glass-encapsulated gas devices, e.g. lighting products will be described. The technique, first developed at GTE Laboratories in Waltham, MA, has recently been further expanded to include a wider range of devices (0.02cc and above) and pressures (15 Torr to 10 Atm.), all of which contain a xenon or krypton fill gas. When analysis results of an EDXRF instrument are combined with that of an absolute pressure-volume analyzer, calibration curves were generated allowing for subsequent non-destructive fill pressure determinations with an accuracy of approx. +/- 10%. The EDXRF analysis generates additional useful qualitative information which will also be presented, e.g. detecting the presence of iodine and other salts. Possible applications for 100% quality testing of products using a variant of the test, sub-second analysis, will be discussed.