Fluorescent Light

Understanding how fluorescent light tubes work begins with a basic understanding of how light is produced. The basic unit of light is the light photon, which is released by an atom when its electrons become energized. As you may know, electrons are negatively charged particles that orbit around an atom’s positively charged nucleus. Electrons have different levels of energy, and move when energy is gained or lost by the atom. When heat passes energy to an atom, electrons quickly shift to another orbital, and almost instantaneously jump back to their original positions. As the return jump takes place, extra energy can be released in the form of a light photon, thus creating light.
We have all heard that fluorescent bulbs are more efficient than incandescent ones, but why? Fluorescent bulbs utilize a more energy efficient process of producing the light that we see. The main difference between incandescent lighting and fluorescent lighting is in the process of stimulating the atoms. Incandescent light bulbs excite atoms through the introduction of heat, resulting in an excess of unused heat energy. Fluorescent light bulbs, on the other hand, utilize a chemical reaction to excite atoms without the same excess heat energy. Both types of bulbs create ultraviolet light, which is not visible to humans. But only fluorescent bulbs utilize a substance that converts the ultraviolet light to visible light, resulting in less wasted energy.