UC Davis

The efficiency and lifetime rate of the cathodoluminescence phosphors light bulbs were improved using pulsed voltage excitation. The experiments were focused on exciting phosphor materials by inputting pulsed voltages of 90, 500 and 1000 Hz instead of DC voltage excitation for phosphor light bulbs. This work also shows the design, construction, and implementation of a pulsed power supply based on flyback transformers to drive the cathodoluminescent phosphor light sources. The improvements were measured and analyzed by comparing the temperature and luminance of results by using DC and different pulsed voltage excitation. The result of flyback pulsed power supply concludes to be a feasible power supply to obtain high voltages at low cost to drive the Vu1 phosphor light sources. The temperature and luminance results showed that driving phosphor sources by using pulsed excitation rather than direct current excitation improves the lifetime and efficiency.