Hi Wagner,

Odds are that you are using a visible red laser, possiblly a HeNe laser
tube?  This light will ionize other Ne gas just as if it too were inside the
laser tube.  If you neon lights actually also had some He in them your power
indicators could lase off the incident beam.

This may be interesting but it would be a big jump to actually making a scan
type display.

I am hanging out for those organic LED's  Has anyone actually seen some?

    cya,    Andrew...

----- Original Message -----
From: Wagner Lipnharski <wagner@USTR.NET>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Friday, November 26, 1999 7:48 AM
Subject: [OT] Interactive Laser/Neon Light?


> Below my computer monitor I have one of those Belkin power station, 6
> switched AC outlets, you know what is it.  Well, all the 6 switches have
> one NEON lamp inside, that lits when the correspondent outlet is
> energized.  Five of those lamps emit an orange steady light from both
> pins inside (AC does that, DC lite only one pin - the negative I
> suppose).  There is one lamp that is pretty unstable, I already see that
> around, the light is not quiet, it jumps up and down the pins in a very
> unstable situation.  Perhaps there is lower neon concentration, or
> something like that.
>
> Now the interesting point, and I would love to see some explanation,
> since I am not that good in neon physics.
>
> I am playing with few lasers and galvos and stepper motors and mirrors,
> you know the mess around, and I noticed by accident that sometimes that
> particular neon lamp gets a very steady light. 10 minutes later I
> noticed that the light gets steady only when the lasers are operating.
> hmmm. So, I grabbed a battery operated laser pointer and spotted
> directly over the unstable lamp... and... voila!!! it gets a very steady
> neon light, it simply stopped jumping over the pins.
>
> Of course that I stopped everything else I was doing and concentrated my
> attention to the fact.  I am able to change a ionized light with a weak
> laser beam. Then I noticed that the laser doesn't need to hit the lamp
> directly, a small surrounding laser does the same effect.
>
> What is the explanation? The laser can change something in the
> ionization? hmmm. perhaps not, and to test it I grabbed a simple
> flashlight and ... badabim... the same effect.  Any light beam over the
> lamp changes the jumping ionization to a steady one.
>
> I didn't measure the AC current at the neon lamp, but it could change in
> presence or not of light... a photo sensor?
>
> Any logical explanation?  What could be the effect of photons in neon
> gas?
>
> Can you imagine a board with zillions of tinny neon gas balls with an
> adjustable polarization voltage not enough to lite them by itself, but a
> scan of a laser beam would lite them and keep them lited? huh? can you
> imagine the low cost of it? no addressing lines, no drivers... a fast
> low voltage pulse would wipe off the image and turn off everything...
>
> Any expert in neon physics here?
>