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So in a nutshell.
REO used a Penning mixture of 0.5% argon in their neon, for lower ionization temps in their Ne II indicator lamps. A penning mixture is a mixture of gases with another gas, used to lower the ionization temperature of the first. So they used this method to make make their Ne II lamps easier to fire. This can lead to what's known as "Penning ionization". Which is where the Ar is ionized based on the Ne.
So the hypothesis is that REO, without considering or QC'ing (quality checking) their decisions, used this same neon in a few HeNes.
This results in a large amount of the neon Penning mixture, resulting in the Penning ionization of the argon.
Argon just so happens to have an Ar I line at 609.07nm.
This phenomena has been documented before, but not in HeNe tubes. Just in outside experimentation.
REO used a Penning mixture of 0.5% argon in their neon, for lower ionization temps in their Ne II indicator lamps. A penning mixture is a mixture of gases with another gas, used to lower the ionization temperature of the first. So they used this method to make make their Ne II lamps easier to fire. This can lead to what's known as "Penning ionization". Which is where the Ar is ionized based on the Ne.
So the hypothesis is that REO, without considering or QC'ing (quality checking) their decisions, used this same neon in a few HeNes.
This results in a large amount of the neon Penning mixture, resulting in the Penning ionization of the argon.
Argon just so happens to have an Ar I line at 609.07nm.
This phenomena has been documented before, but not in HeNe tubes. Just in outside experimentation.
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